Congratulations to St. Joseph`s Secondary School, Charlestown senior school`s team who captured the Flanagan Cup with a good victory over St. Tiernan`s (Crossmolina ) in a thrilling final played in the grounds of Moyne College , Ballina recently.
St Joseph`s got off to a flying start with a brace of goals from Michael Durcan and Jack Brennan, the latter finishing off a slick handpassing move that involved several players.
The Charlestown school continued to dominate the opening twenty minutes with points from Jack Mahon, Martin McCormack, Ruairi Cullen and Ben Crean only consolidating their advantage and overall control.
The second half was a much tighter affair with the Crossmolina school presenting a much more formidable challenge as they started to make inroads into St Joe`s big lead. They bagged two early goals to haul themselves back into contention with the Charlestown school starting to wobble in the face of an onslaught of pressure from the Crossmolina school.
St Joe`s needed a response to steady the ship so to speak and they got it in the form of a fine goal from skipper Ciaran Honeyman which was enough to keep at bay a stubborn and determined St Tiernan`s challenge which remained alive right to the final whistle. Honourable mention to James Conway in goals for St Joe`s as he made some crucial saves particulary when St Tiernan`s had their tails up and were piling all kinds of pressure on a busy and sometimes stretched Charlestown defence. St Joe`s held firm however to see out the match with Mike Herr , secretary of the Mayo Post Primary Schools Football Board on hand to present the cup to a jubilant Ciaran Honeyman on behalf of a euphoric St Joe`s team and panel. Well done to manager Brendan Prendergast who had the lads well prepared for their title tilt and got his team selection and tactics spot on for what was a free flowing, enjoyable encounter. The team and panel who did the school proud was as follows : James Conway, Brendan McCormack, Máirtín Beirne, Óran Duffy, Sean Dunleavy, Ben Conway, Jack Brennan, Jack Mahon, Martin McCormack, Eoin Goldrick, Ruairi Cullen, Ben Crean, Michael Durcan, Ciaran Honeyman, Darragh Duffy, Dillon Curry, Michael Marren, Daniel Harrington, Seamus Doherty, Tomas Horan, Conor Gavaghan.