On a day of glorious sunshine in Grangegodden, Gaeil Colmcille were convincing winners in the opening round of the hurling league.
It was a busy day of hurling at the venue as seven clubs competed in Feile and this led to a delayed start while the adult teams waited for referee Shane Mooney to conclude his officiating duties with the under 15s.
St. Pats were quick off the mark, pointing from play in the first minute but Kells responded immediately with points from Andrew Gormley and Tiernan Anderson. An injury to Oisin O’Reilly saw him replaced by John Murray after 5 minutes before Liam Ferguson added a point. Both sides shared a number of wides and as the midway point of the half approached a brilliant goal line clearance by Cormac Ferguson prevented St. Pats from taking the lead.
Anderson added two frees in quick succession and St. Pats converted one of their own in reply. A memorable point from Gary McGovern and two further frees from Anderson concluded the scoring in the first half to see the home team lead 0:08 to 0:02 at half time.
Kells continued where they left off in the first half as Anderson, Stephen Reddy and Liam Ferguson extended the lead within five minutes of the restart. Andrew Gormley converted a close in free and added one from play two minutes later.
The visitors broke the sequence when their centre forward split the posts but this was cancelled out by Andrew Gormley once again and his brother John got in on the act a minute later with an excellent long range effort. Conor Roche became the seventh Kells player to score as the Gaeils built up a comprehensive lead.
Midway through the second half St. Pats gave themselves a glimmer of hope with a goal but Liam Ferguson pointed immediately afterwards to reduce the impact. The men from east Meath enjoyed a short period of dominance but a superb save from Conor Murray kept them at bay before they eventually had to settle for a point from their centre back. Conal McGovern, who had worked tirelessly throughout was replaced by Fionn Smith with ten minutes to go.
Veteran Mickey Foley was introduced to see the game out, and Kyle O’Rourke made his debut for the club as the clock ticked down. Anderson got the last two points of the game with frees in the final minutes.
Next up for Kells is a trip to Kilberry to play Wolfe Tones on Saturday, May 4th.
Gaeil Colmcille: Conor Murray, Rian Early, Cormac Ferguson, Adam Muldoon, Oisin O’Reilly, John Gormley (0-01), Cormac O’Reilly, Liam Ferguson (0-03), Evan Sheridan, Andrew Gormley (0-04, 1f), Tiernan Anderson (0-08, 6f), Conal McGovern, Robbie Hunt, Gary McGovern (0-01), Stephen Reddy (0-01).
Subs: John Murray for Oisin O’Reilly, Conor Roche (0-01) for Robbie Hunt, Fionn Smith for Conal McGovern, Michael Foley for Gary McGovern, Kyle O’Rourke for Stephen Reddy.
