St Eunan's easily brush off the challenge of disappointing Burt in SHC

Sizzling St Eunan’s simply steamrolled what was a lethargic challenge from an understrength Burt side at Hibernian Park on Friday night. 

Burt 1-8 St Eunan’s 2-22 

The winners edged all the important battles, were composed, cohesive and deadly accurate against their wasteful young rivals. 

Letterkenny came to Burt with an almost full-strength side. Sean McVeigh and Fergal Delaney were their only absentees, while Burt were forced to field without Liam McKinney, Conor Gartland, Christopher McDermott, Ciaran Bradley and the long term injured Ronan McDermott. 

They would have needed all of the above to be present to give a strong St Eunan’s side a real challenge, and their replacements were not able to make any real impression on Letterkenny. 

Ryan Hilferty and the outstanding Russell Forde grabbed the goals for the winners and Kieran Brady replied for Burt who were very wasteful in the opening half-posting nine wides while playing with the breeze. 

For a very impressive Eunan’s side Brian McIntyre and Daire Ó Maoileidigh were stand out figures while Burt constantly struggled with the pace and accuracy of the Eunan’s attack. Stephen Gillespie tried hard to rally his younger colleagues, but he lacked consistent support. 

The winners eased into a 1-5 to 0-0 lead by the 12th minute with Ó Maoileidigh, Kevin Kealy hitting swift points and Ryan Hilferty finished a sweet move orchestrated by McIntyre to the net and Ó Maoileidigh completed the points. In between Burt shot six hasty wides. 

They finally got off the mark with a free from Brady that looked wide but referee Trevor Maloney gave the point in the 16h minute. 

The swift moving Forde won quite a lot of possession and was on target along with the impressive Peter Kelly to put Eunan’s into a 1-10 to 0-1 lead. 

Burt did manage to find the net when the hard- working Gillespie found Gavin McGrath for a simple tap in 27th minute. 

Gillespie followed up with a point with Ahern replying for Eunan’s to leave them leading by 1-11 to 1-2 at the break. Eunan’s had the breeze on the resumption as Brady hit the first score for Burt. 

But this was a brief flicker as Kelly and Ahern pointed for Eunan’s along with the elegant Ó Maoileidigh, Forde and Hilferty piling on the agony. 

And, it was fitting that it was Forde who found the net when he beat Burt’s excellent keeper Paul Burns with a low drive to the corner of the net. Forde’s fine effort put Eunan’s into a 2-17 to 1-4 lead. 

Eunan’s ran the bench and had the luxury of taking off Brian McIntyre at half-time to give the mercurial Cormac Finn some game time. Burns made a superb save to deny Forde a second goal as Kealy, Kelly and sub- Finn got the final scores. 

Brady hit two points on the bounce for a disappointing Burt side even allowing for the considerable absence of their injured stars 

A very impressive win for St Eunan’s who put down a clear marker but if Burt has Liam McKinney, Conor Gartland, Ciaran Bradley and Christopher McDermott back on board for the semi-finals-they will be a totally different proposition 

Burt scorers: Kieran Brady 0-5,3f; Gavin McGrath 1-0; Stephen Gillespie 0-2; Stephen Gallagher 0-1. 

St Eunan’s scorers; Russell Forde 1-5; Ryan Hilferty 1-4; Daire Ó Maoileidigh 0-3; Peter Kelly 0-3; Kevin Kealy 0-2; Matt Ahern 0-3; Eoin Scanlon 0-1, Brian McIntyre 0-1. 

Burt: Paul Burns; Benny Harrigan, James Donaghey, Dara Grant; Callum Purves, Oisin Kelly, Gareth Quinn; Kevin Curran, Ciaran Curran; Caolan McDermott, Jack Gallagher, Stephen Gillespie; Stephen Gallagher, Kieran Brady, Gavin McGrath. 

Subs: Ciaran Porter for Gareth Quinn (53). 

St Eunan’s: Cian Hennessy; Ciaran Murray, Conor McVeigh, Lorcan Heavey; Ryan Hilferty, Conor O’Grady, Sean Halvey; Donal Horgan, Brian McIntyre; Daire Ó Maoileidigh, Kevin Kealy, Matt Ahern; Peter Kelly, Eoin Scanlon, Russell Forde. 

Subs; Cormac Finn for Brian McIntyre (ht), JP Curran for Lorcan Heavey and Johnny Lambe for Eoin Scanlon (45), Lee Scanlon for David Horgan (54). 

Referee: Trevor Maloney (Buncrana)