February 15, 2011
By Staff Reporter
By John Markey
Rangers 1-9, Mayo 1-4
Sunday’s program at Gaelic Park opened with the eagerly anticipated encounter in the Junior “A” ranks between two of the fancied sides for honors, Rangers and Mayo. After the hour, the speculation concerning Rangers’ championship aspirations gained more momentum. The side is well balanced and have gained experience over the years. Many believe that this will be their year. Sunday’s evidence does seem to suggest that they are the team to beat in this division.
They will want to polish up on their finishing skills as they approach the playoffs. They did pull around, however, with scores from Joe Maloney, Dave Phelan, Fintan O’Shea and Mike Molomphy. Mayo’s inexperience was showing and their first score took 22 minutes to arrive, courtesy of a Joe Carey free. At the interval, despite playing poorly, they only found themselves only 3 points in arrears, 0-5 to 0-2.
Dermot Fleming was performing heroics in the Mayo goal, but his performance failed to lift his teammates. Rangers added unanswered points and their breakthrough came in the 40th minute, with Joe Maloney firing to the back of the Mayo net. Phil Bermingham was dismissed with 10 minutes remaining, but Mayo couldn’t avail of their extra man, with a Ken Coyne goal the highlight of their day.
Mal McHugh, Mike Rennicks, John Creegan, Tom Bermingham, Dave Phelan and Joe Maloney were best for Rangers, with Dermot Fleming, Tom Maher, Dave Hyland, Niall Coogan, Marshall McAdoo and Ken Coyne trying hard for Mayo.
Never miss an issue of The Irish Echo
Subscribe to one of our great value packages.
Rangers scorers: D. Phelan 0-5, J. Maloney 1-1, F. O’Shea, M. Molomphy and J. Murphy all 0-1.
Mayo: K. Coyne 1-0, J. Browne 0-2, J. Carey and D. Fleming both 0-1.