U21A Championship
Semi-Final
St Gall's 3-14
Kickham's Creggan 2-12
At Milltown
AN early brace of Niall Fallon goals granted St Gall's the platform to build a secure lead as they overcame South Antrim natives Creggan at Milltown on Sunday afternoon.
St Gall's enjoyed a hefty victory last weekend over Belfast rivals St Paul's in their pursuit for back-to-back U21 championships, and this weekend's opponents saw the same swashbuckling free-flowing attack from the offset. The Belfast side led by seven without reply inside five minutes of football.
Pádraig Óg Murray got the scoring underway with a cracking effort on the inside right as the home side were up and running. Within minutes St Gall's would find the net after Niall Fallon used his pace to navigate the space in the Creggan backline, before arrowing an effort into the far-right corner.
From the Creggan kick-out, the Milltown outfit recovered the ball and launched a counter-attack which saw Callum Walsh link well with Daniel Quinn. The latter lobbed a hand-pass into the danger area where Fallon flew missile-like in the air to punch the ball into the empty net.
Creggan did eventually start to flex some muscles in the attack as Liam McClernon and Anton Martin both struck great points after driving through the heart of the St Gall's defensive line in quick succession.
A five point gap seemed to be impregnable as anytime the South Antrim side struck a point, St Gall's would shortly reply in the same manner.
Daniel Quinn continued to impress at this level, following up on last weekend's superb performance, and thundered a fantastic two-pointed effort to put his side up by seven with less than five minutes to play in the first period.
SUPERSUB: Dubhaltach MacCrabhagain scored two vital points off the bench for St Gall's
Despite controlling most of the game and the tempo, St Gall's saw the game flipped on its head when Creggan scored their own quick-fire goal double.
The men from the Foyle cut the gap to the minimum after Ronan McGuckian lashed an effort straight into the roof of the net much to the delight of the travelling fans.
St Gall's were reeling at the end of the half, and when Anton Martin found a second Creggan goal, their hefty lead had evaporated to just the single score.
Momentum had firmly switched between these two storied rivals and whoever started the second period the fastest would likely prevail.
Despite Conor Johnston's first point of the afternoon levelling proceedings, St Gall's would regain the advantage momentarily when Daniel Quinn struck two in as many minutes to restore the one-point lead.
Substitute Dubhaltach MacCrabhagáin would have a quick impact as he nipped into the space in the forward line before the St Gall's forward could clip the ball between the posts as white flags were raised once more.
Quinn managed to extend the St Gall's lead as he used his experience of the senior game to strike another flurry of scores.
Niall Fallon's solo drive resulted in another terrific goal. The forward dropped his shoulder not once, not twice, but three times in succession to evade the entire Creggan defensive line but his effort was blocked with the ball managing to fall into the path of Callum Walsh whose effort flew into the goal.
Creggan did fight back and Shea McCann proved more than up to the task of pointing from the dead ball on a few occasions to try and establish a comeback for the Derry borderers.
Callum Walsh and Dubhaltach MacCrabhagáin both saw their efforts soar high and over, as the home side tallied another two points and the hosts led by five with five to go in this fantastic semi-final affair.
The travelling side were in desperate search for a goal late on and Conor Johnston's effort was brilliantly blocked by Ethan Walsh at the death to prevent any chance of a comeback.
Just as the game began, Niall Fallon found himself in space once more and sealed the victory with a fist-pass over the bar for another score which wrapped up his sides spot in the final next weekend.
St Gall's now have the chance of a second consecutive U21A Championship, but will face a tough St Brigid's side after their victory against Aghagallon on Sunday afternoon.
ST GALL'S: C Óg Mullan; C Hale, G Adams, F McCullagh; S Adams, L Lynn, E Walsh; O Maskey, M Crossan; A Mackel, D Quinn 0-8 (1x2P, 0-3f), C Walsh 1-1; J Rafferty 0-1, N Fallon 2-1, P Óg Murray 0-1
Subs: D MacCrabhanna 0-2, P Austin
CREGGAN KICKHAMS: C Loughran; P McGuckian, C McLarnon, F Kelly; F Close 0-2 (0-2f), C McEldowney, L McLernon 0-1; A McIlwee, T McCann; A Martin 1-1, R McGuckian 1-0, S Daly; C Johnston 0-3, E Johnston, S McCann 0-5 (0-4f)
Subs: S Devlin, D McCann
Referee: Fiontánn McCotter (Sarsfields)
