Gaeil Colmcille welcomed near neighbours, Cortown to Grangegodden on Thursday evening for the fifth round of the Premier Championship Division 7 with Gaeil Colmcille unbeaten to Cortown’s one loss.
Both sides wasted chances in the first five minutes before Cortown opened the scoring with a pointed free. Cormac Mattimoe equalised soon after with a point from play before Cian Donlan got on the end of a well worked move to slot over from a tight angle.
Gary McGovern added two frees to extend the lead by the midway point of the first half. Cortown got the next score, another free, before Donlan responded with his second point of the evening. Cortown got on top for the last 10 minutes of the half as a point from a free was quickly followed by another from play. The only response from Kells during this period was a Mattimoe point, while two from play and a converted free saw the visitors take a one point lead into the interval.
There was plenty of battles throughout the pitch with cousins on both sides getting to know each other a bit better, Phelim Dunne got well acquainted to his cousin Ciarán Keating while Fionn Smith had two of his cousins to deal with as Oisin and Tom lined out for Cortown.
Despite conceding the first point of the second half, Kells went on to dominate the scoring for the next 20 minutes as they accounted for the next seven points. McGovern, Zak Griffin and Mattimoe put Kells back in the lead, and McGovern then converted two marks to extend this lead.
The purple patch continued for the scoring trio as Griffin and Mattimoe both pointed from play. Two Cortown points from play reduced the difference to three before old maestro Gary Arkins scored a fine point almost immediately after coming on to the pitch. Again Cortown reduced the gap to three points with a free on 29 minutes.
Referee Larry McEntee played six minutes of injury time as the visitors dropped a number of balls into the Gaeils goalmouth, but the Kells defence stood strong to ensure a three point victory.
Gaeil Colmcille: Chris Doyle, Kristapus Vitkauskas, Brian Byrne, Phelim Dunne, Cormac O’Reilly, Conal Gormley, Fionn Smith, Sean Cleary, Kevin Carpenter, Cormac Mattimoe (0-04), Dylan Roche, Zak Griffin (0-02), Alex Williams, Gary McGovern (0-05), Cian Donlon (0-02)
Gary Arkins (0-01)
