Meath Cleaning Supplies – Premier Football Championship Division 6 – Round 5. Dunshaughlin 1-03, Skryne 0-14

Skryne’s third team travelled to Dunshaughlin on Friday evening to play their neighbours in the black and amber on a perfect evening for football. Skryne’s senior teams badly needed a victory to boost the confidence after the first and second teams both suffered defeats earlier in the week.

Skryne had a perfect mix of young talent with a splash of the more experienced journeymen such as Mark Harrington, Ciarán Finnerty and Seán Cassidy. The message in the team talk was quite clear, ‘fight for every ball straight from the start’ and that was what each of the Skryne players did as soon as Robbie Barrett put his whistle to his mouth and lofted the ball above the 4 midfielders to signal the start of the game. Dunshaughlin did start brightly with Seán O’Neill opening the scoring on the fourth minute with what proved to be Dunshaughlin’s only score of the half. Skryne clicked into gear with Andrew Canavan posting Skryne’s opening score nine minutes in. Four more points were to follow as Skryne took complete control of the game with Kian Reddy(2, 1 free), Charlie Swan and Ciarán Quinn (a free) all finding the target as Skryne lead by 0-5 to 0-1 at the midway point of the half. Skryne were ruthless in the first half, getting in the face of their opponent and forcing mistakes. This paid dividends for Skryne in the 16th minute when the Skryne defence were on the backfoot, but they kept their discipline and stole possession from the Dunshaughlin forward with full-back James Reeves emerging with the ball and moving it quickly forward to Conor Donohoe who soloed through the middle of the Dunshaughlin defence before side-footing over Skryne’s sixth point. Andrew Canavan added another for Skryne on 21 minutes after Mark Harrington fed Ciarán Finnerty in the full-forward line. Canavan ran off the shoulder of Finnerty and hit a belter of a shot intended for the goal, but hit the crossbar and went over. Mark Harrington added to Skryne’s tally as they turned the screw on their opponents. Two Kian Reddy pointed frees extended the lead further. In the final minute of the half Dunshaughlin were guilty of dilly-dallying with the ball in defence and Skryne nicked possession and Ciarán Quinn slotted over to give Skryne a 10-point lead at half-time. Half-time: Dunshaughlin 0-01, Skryne 0-11.

Skryne started off where they left in the second half with two early points from Kian Reddy(a free) and Ciarán Quinn, his third of the game. Skryne looked to be tiring a bit and scores were harder to come by. Dunshaughlin needed goals and they got one on the 12th minute when for the first time in the game, they broke through the heart of the Skryne defence and the Dunshaughlin forward smashed the ball to the back of the Skryne net. Skryne didn’t panic and Andrew Canavan added Skryne’s final score 21 minutes into the half. Dunshaughlin replied with a point of their own a minute later, but the gap remained significant with Skryne holding a nine-point lead. Skryne almost added a final point but Oisín Coyle saw his shot rebound off the post. Dunshaughlin added a consolation point in injury time, but the result was never in doubt as Skryne ran out easy victors to claim their second victory in this championship to leave them sitting in mid-table.

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