Summerhill’s 2nd team faced Navan O’Mahony’s in the Premier 2 Championship Semi Final on Sunday morning in Summerhill. Summerhill had beaten O’Mahony’s in an earlier group game but were expecting, and got, a stern test from the Brew’s Hill men.
I was over 4 week since Summerhill’s last game in the competition and the rustiness showed in the opening half. Summerhill opened brightly enough leading by 4 points to 2 after 10 minutes with points from Conor Summerville, a Kevin Lyons free and 2 from Paul Larkin. O’Mahony’s began to find their rhythm and hit 5 of the next 6 points to lead at the break by 7 points to 5. The O’Mahony’s men were defending well in numbers and breaking forward at pace picking off some nice points. As the break approached a Connie McGrath goal bound effort was deflected out for a 45 as Summerhill forwards struggled to break down the resolute O’Mahony’s defense.

The 2nd started pretty much as the first ended with scores hard to come by. In the 6th minute of the half Paul Larkin found himself on and one with the keeper but his shot was well saved. Navan broke forward and extended their lead to 3 with a point. Half time substitute Ben Moran scored Summerhill’s first point of the half to reduce the gap again to 2 but the Navan men hit back with a free to extend the lead once more. Summerhill forwards finally started to fine their range scoring 1-3 with out reply to turn the game on its head. A Jack Regan point was quickly followed by a goal from Paul Larkin. Good work from Luke Byrne created the opening for Larkin who made up for his earlier miss. The goal was soon followed by a Kevin Lyons free that stretched the Summerhill lead to 3 in the 20th minute. A pointed free from the visitors was answered by 3 further points from Summerhill, 2 from Kevin Mulligan and another from Paul Larkin, which pushed the lead out to what seemed like a comfortable 5 points as the game entered injury time. In fairness to the Navan men they kept attacking and were rewarded with a well taken goal in the 31st minute to cut the lead to a “dangerous” 2 points. O’Mahony’s mounted a couple more attacks in search of a winning goal but the Summerhill defense held firm to win out on a score line of 1-12 to 1-10 and see everyone head off to Pairc Tailteann for the senior semi final in good spirits. 

Summerhill now move on to meet St Colmcilles in the final. On a positive note it was good to see Ben Moran back on the field after an injury lay off. On the negative side however Eoghan Grehan picked up what looks like a nasty shoulder injury late in the game.

Team: Sean Mudiman, Kevin Mulligan (0-2), Eoghan Jennings, Mark Donoghue (0-1), Jack Davies, Eoghan Grehan, Darragh McVann, Jack Regan (0-1), Ciaran Gillespie, Conor Summerville (0-1), Kevin Lyons (0-2, 2f), Eamonn Ryan, Paul Larkin (1-4), Connie McGrath, Cathal Brien.

Subs: Ben Moran (0-1) for McVann, Conor McNally for Donoghue, Conor Ryan for Summerville, Luke Byrne for Brien, Gavin McVann for Gillespie.