Ulster Intermediate Ladies' Football Championship final: Down 0-3 Tyrone 0-17
TYRONE retained the Ulster Intermediate Championship title with relative ease at Clonmore last night, seeing off Down with 14 points to spare.
The champions built up a healthy 0-9 to 0-1 lead at half-time as they made full use of the strong wind at their backs, with full-forward Gemma Begley very much on her game, kicking four of those nine first half points.
Niamh O’Neill, who replaced Siobhan Sheerin at corner-forward in the starting line-up, fired over the opening point after just 14 seconds.
The Sperrin Og girl added a second before Aine Canavan, also a late change to the starting team for Lycrecia Quinn opened a three-point lead in as many minutes.
Canavan’s sister Maria, meanwhile, had started in place of Emma Smyth in four changes rung by manager Gerry Moane.
Down settled into the contest and Kyla Treanor got them on the board after 10 minutes, while the wind was causing havoc with two Treanor frees also dropping short.
Tyrone were wasteful, hitting six first half wides, but a flurry of points from Begley and a brace from Maria Canavan gave them an eight-point advantage at the interval.
It was all one way traffic in the first half and, despite playing into the wind, it was Tyrone who hit the first six points after the resumption with five different players on target in the third quarter.
O’Neill was on target in the 33rd minute with a Begley free putting 10 points between them on 38 minutes.
Three quickfire points followed from the Canavan sisters either side of one from Rebecca McCrory, the fourth change to the Tyrone starting line-up.
It was 0-15 to 0-1 before Down registered their first score of the second half and their first in 37 minutes when substitute Aisling Cull pointed from a free in the 47th minute.
That was soon followed by another Down point, this time substitute Cushla Savage on target.
It was to be the Mourne county’s final score of the game as Begley rounded off the evening’s scoring with two points, both from frees, in a game that petered out at the end.
Both sides were reduced to 14 players inside the final 10 minutes, Down’s Chara Laverty and Tyrone’s Lycrecia Quinn sent off in separate incidents.
It did little, however, to dampen Tyrone’s spirits as captain Neamh Woods, who also picked up the player of the match accolade, collected the provincial title for the second year in-a-row.
Tyrone: S Lynch; E Mulgrew, J Barrett, E Brennan; N Woods (capt), S Cunningham Quinn, C Hunter; M Mallon, E J Girvan; E Hegarty, A Canavan (0-2), M Canavan (0-3); N O’Neill (0-4), G Begley (0-7, 0-5 frees), R McCrory (0-1)
Subs: E Smyth for E Hegarty, G Rafferty for R McCrory, C Conway for J Barrett, Lycrecia Quinn for A Canavan, S Sheerin for G Begley
Down: C McCarthy; G Magee, O Boyle, A Greene; A Trainor, C Cunningham, K McKay; C Laverty, L Duffy; S Branagan, A Keown, L Cunningham (capt); K Treanor (0-1), E Durkan, E McDowell
Subs: G McClean for K McKay, A Cull (0-1) for E Durkin, N McKibbin for E McDowell, C Savage (0-1) for A Keown.
Referee: P Swift (Monaghan)
