Fleming goals fire Kinnegad to victory over Caulry

Coralstown Kinnegad 4-6 Caulry 0-10

As was the case when the sides met in the group stage last August, goals proved crucial for Coralstown/Kinnegad as they comfortably saw off Caulry in the opening clash of this year’s Shay Murtagh Precast SFC at a resplendent TEG Cusack Park on Saturday evening.

Shane Fleming (2), Brían Cooney and Dan Leech all raised green flags, as Jack Cooney and Paschal Kellaghan’s charges recorded an ideal start to their bid to follow up Division 1 league success with a first championship win since 1996.

In their way stood Shane Curran’s Caulry side, who never really got going over the 60-odd minutes, and despite some swashbuckling play from Westmeath star Kevin Maguire, were heavily reliant on frees from a closely-marked Senan Baker.

As a defensive unit, Kinnegad were well-drilled and gobbled up most of what Caulry threw at them. With Darren Giles pulling the strings, they were ruthless in attack, and hit the net three times in the first half to lead 3-3 to 0-5 at the short whistle.

A fourth goal from Fleming after 41 minutes put the result beyond doubt, and from there Kinnegad – who finished the game with 11 wides – could afford to relax.

Cooney opened the championship scoring fare with a free after a minute and a half before being teed up by Giles to finish low to the net after a swift move.

Caulry, who lined out without inter-county panellist Conor McCormack and the experienced Damien Dolan, lost centre-half Eoghan Grennan to injury after eight minutes, and struggled to settle.

The roving Kevin Maguire went close for them after three minutes, drilling a fierce left-footed shot just wide, before Senan Baker opened their account seven minutes later.

However, a second Kinnegad goal arrived on 13 minutes after a blocked point attempt from Callum Cruise looped into the danger area and was fisted home by Fleming.

Baker picked off two frees in response, but Darren Giles landed a lovely score off his left to leave it 2-2 to 0-3 with 17 gone. It wasn’t all one-way traffic though. Cooney (who fumbled at the key moment) and Giles both had sniffs at goal, before Kinnegad racked up three wides.

At the other end, Maguire made frequent sorties downfield for Caulry, setting up Adam Roarke for a score – his second – after rolling like a bowling ball through the Kinnegad defence. Tiernan O’Donovan also posed a frequent threat in the Caulry vanguard.

The momentum was briefly with the Southerners, but after an error in midfield they were carved open again on 26 minutes, with Podge Quinn soloing into the breach and setting up Dan Leech for a goal from point-blank range.

Giles extended Kinnegad’s lead to eight with a free, but before the break Caulry almost had a goal of their own, when Adam Roarke’s shot cannoned off the crossbar and went over.

After the restart, Giles and Baker exchanged a brace of frees, and Caulry sub Thomas Dunning had an attempt at goal blocked before pointing to reduce the arrears to six (40 minutes).

A minute later however, the game was killed off as a contest when Shane Fleming showed tremendous strength to round his marker and hammer the ball to the roof of Cillian Nagle’s net. At the three-quarter mark, Josh Gahan found his range with a superb kick.

Coralstown/Kinnegad had their work done. They introduced some subs before easing up on the intensity, and when centre back Jason Macken was black carded (55) they had no reason to worry. Caulry, meanwhile, battled on manfully, and should have tacked on a couple of goals.

The Mount Temple men had a gilt-edged opportunity in the 54th minute when a superb move led to Oisín Shortall handpassing across the face of goal, with the inrushing Paddy Sleator and Aaron Roarke missing from close quarters.

Sleator and Baker (a free) both added to the Caulry tally, and the latter struck the crossbar late on, but the Southerners were well beaten at that stage.

Scorers - Coralstown/Kinnegad: S Fleming 2-0, B Cooney 1-1 (0-1f), Darren Giles 0-4 (3f), D Leech 1-0, J Gahan 0-1. Caulry: S Baker 0-6f, A Roarke 0-2, P Sleator and T Dunning 0-1 each.

Coralstown/Kinnegad: Sean Martin; Liam Daly, Daniel Woods, Jason Lynch; James Maxwell, Jason Macken, Josh Gahan; Shane Fleming, Podge Quinn; Eoin O’Brien, Darren Giles, Eoghan Bracken; Dan Leech, Brían Cooney, Callum Cruise. Subs used: Jack Torpey for Leech (40), Wayne Fox for Maxwell (43), Brian McGrath for Lynch (51), Ciaran Daly Snr for L Daly (55), L Daly for Quinn (60).

Caulry: Cillian Nagle; Harry Stuart-Trainor, Kevin Maguire, Dylan Lowry; Tadhg Baker, Eoghan Grennan, Tom Cloonan; Stephen Connolly, Sean Fox; Colin Murphy, Alan Malynn, Paddy Sleator; Tiernan O’Donovan, Senan Baker, Aaron Roarke. Subs used: Eoin Shortall for Grennan (inj., 8), Thomas Dunning for Murphy (h-t), Oisín Shortall for Lowry (36), Olan Healy for Cloonan (inj., 43).

Ref: Mick Murtagh (The Downs).