February 16, 2011
By Staff Reporter
By Connie Kelly
The 1999 Boston GAA season got under way at Dilboy Stadium in Somerville on Sunday with five games played in the Mawn Cup. The opening games were played under brilliant sunshine with a fairly strong breeze, but ended in winter-like bone-chilling cold.
Last year’s Northeast and North American champions gave the best performance of the afternoon. The Aiden McAnespie’s team looked good for most of the game, defeating rivals Shannon Blues by a score of 2-8 to 1-7. Brian Moore, who had two goals in the game, one in each half, surely hurt what chances the Blues had. Darren Farmer looked very impressive for McAnespie’s with four first-half points, two from frees, while Clinton Hennessy for the Blues had a goal from a penalty and two points from frees in the first half Dave Burke added a point for the Blues. Conor McKiever put the McAnespie’s ahead with a nicely taken point from play to make it 1-5 to 1-3 at halftime.
In the second half, once again Farmer gave a fine performance for McAnespies along with Eugene McKenna and John Rennicks. For the Blues, Hennessy, Burke, Noel Gannon and the Driscoll brothers tried hard but came up short by a score of 2-8 to 1-7.
Connemara 2-10, St. Pat’s 1-6
The second game saw St. Pat’s, last year’s Northeast champions in intermediate football take it right to the Connemara Gaels and after 17 minutes of play were ahead 1-3 to 0-1. But that was enough for the Gaels, who turned up the heat with four unanswered points to leave the halftime score 1-3 to 0-5. The second half was pretty much all Gaels. They scored 2-5 to just 3 points for St. Pat’s, leaving the final score 2-10 to 1-6.
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Kerry 3-6, Mayo 1-8
The Kerry vs. Mayo game was like the weather, hot and cold. Kerry got off to a flying start with Mark O’Brien two points from frees and Pat Buttimer with a well-taken goal after 6 minutes. But then they took a nap for 10 minutes. Mayo settled down and had scores from McGuinness and Jetro Toner. And when Des O’Malley found the back of the Kerry net Kerry had to dig in and get back in the game which they did with a goal from Mike O’Brien and a point from Fergus Stack and Mark O’Brien. Mayo responded with points from Gerry Woods and Seamus Mullen to make it Kerry 2-4, Mayo 1-4 at halftime. Kerry made a few changes in the second half but still looked rusty. They held on to win by 3-6 to 1-8.
Mayo were well served by Kevin Walsh, Paddy Clarke, Kevin Comer, Jetro Toner, Gary Woods and Des O’Malley, while the O’Brien brothers, Brian Farrell and Pat Buttimer and Conor Muldoon kept Kerry afloat.
Other games
In the last game of the afternoon, short-handed Notre Dame were no match for Donegal, winning by a score of 2-9 to 0-4. Hugh Meehan and Sean Casey tried hard to make a game of it but Donegal were far too strong. Donegal did manage to give their entire panel a run which can only help for their game with Kerry in Round 2.
Also, in the opening game Cork had an easy win over Christopher’s by a score of 3-10 to 1-7.April 18 schedule
Noon, Ladies Football, Shamrocks vs. Innisfail
1 p.m., Mawn Cup, Cork vs. St. Columbkilles
2:15 p.m., Mawn Cup, Connemara Gaels vs. Galway
3:30 p.m., Fox Cup Hurling, Tipperary vs. Galway
4:45 p.m., Aiden McAnespies vs. Wolfe Tones
6 p.m., Kerry vs. Donegal