Harps on the end of a Valentine's massacre
O'Dwyer's Stephen O'Donohue gets past David Sheridan (left) and Bobby Quinn of Garristown.
Wednesday February 17 2010
IT was a St Valentines Day massacre in Skerries on Sunday morning when the locals went under to Division 1 side Na Fianna in the opening round of the Vincent de Paul competition.
As is now usual in these warm-up competitions, both sides fielded under-strength teams as mentors seek to find the right balance before the start of the league competition on February 28th. On this display, Harps have a lot of work to do.
That said, Skerries more than held their own for the first 15 minutes and were unlucky to see goal-bound shots from Colin Daly and Harry Dawson cleared. However when the Glasnevin side had the goal in their sights they quickly showed the difference in class between the Division one and Division two sides.
They got the opening two scores before Ronan O'Sullivan pointed for Harps after ten minutes. A wellworked goal for the visitors put daylight between the sides, with a fitter and more alert Na Fianna team going on to notch up another six points before Harry Dawson pointed from the left for Skerries as the home side trailed 0-2 to 1-9 at the interval.
Harps opened the second half with the breeze behind them and a long delivery from Colin Daly was gathered and smashed to the net by Conor O'Brien. It looked as though Skerries might make a match of it, but Na Fianna soon took up where they left off.
They were extremely fast on the counter attack and punished Skerries for a lack of concentration. In addition, Skerries gave away possession far too easily with misdirected passes, and seemed incapable of taking up any breaking ball.
A second goal for Na Fianna midway through the half left the score at 1–3 to 2–16 for the visitors.
Harps suffered the loss of midfielder Graham Cullen with a dead leg shortly afterwards but never gave up.
And they were almost in for a second goal when Conor O'Brien was taken down on the edge of the square when clean through on goal with the offender receiving a yellow card.
Two points each from Donnacha Reilly and Niall O'Sullivan followed before Na Fianna scored their third goal and went on to win pulling up. Skerries' next game is against another Division One side, Lucan Sarsfields, away next Sunday.
The third side in their section of the Cup competition is St Mary's, Saggart, also operating in Division one.
