Friday 16^th April, Senior Football League

Skerries Harps 2 – 8                        Naomh Olaf 2 – 8

Naomh Olaf came away with a hard-earned point from this League encounter in Skerries on Friday night.  This was a scrappy stop start game with too many frees to count.

Gary Wilkins opened the scoring with a fine point right from the throw-in but Skerries then dominated for more than twenty minutes starving the Naomh Olaf forwards of possession and scoring 1 – 3 including a neatly taken penalty.  Naomh Olaf was then awarded a penalty which was scored by Eoin Kinsella.  Before Olaf’s had time to build on this score Skerries scored yet another goal and there was time only for Brian Begley to score a free before the half-time whistle. 

Skerries Harps 2 – 4        Naomh Olaf 1 – 2

On resumption Conor Haskins was replaced by Darragh Maxwell and and an injured Barry Lynch was replaced by Niall McCaffrey.   During the second half Naomh Olaf used the five permitted substitutes and all made a fine contribution to the final outcome. 

Cormac Lucey pointed a free as did Skerries.  Simon Hickey scored a fine point from play and Skerries replied with another.  Naomh Olaf were determined to reduce the gap between the teams and Cormac Lucey added another free and Shane Whyte scored a point from play.  Skerries scored two frees and with twenty minutes gone things were looking grim for the visitors now trailing 2 – 8 to 1 – 6.  Naomh Olaf pressed and pressed and were rewarded with another penalty which w as sent to the net again by Eoin Kinsella.  Cormac Lucey scored to narrow the gap to the minimum and in the next few minutes Olaf’s bombarded the Harps goal to no avail.  With the last kick of the game Cormac Lucey equalised and both team and supporters happily faced the almost 60 kilometre journey home to Sandyford.

Naomh Olaf:

D Kelleher, C Sobolewski, R Byrne, S Kinsella, B Gaughran, E Christian, B Lynch, C Haskins, K Birrane, G Wilkins (0 -1), S Whyte (0 -1), B Begley (0 -1f), S Hickey (0 -1), E Kinsella (2 – 0p), C Lucey (0 – 4(2f)).

Substitutes:

                                D Maxwell and N McCaffrey for C Haskins and B Lynch at half-time.

                                J McGrath for B Begley (40mins)

                                A Murphy for B Gaughran (45mins)

                                D Lynch for G Wilkins (50mins)