Maur's finish in a flourish to shock Saggart Saints

Rory Kerr

St Maur's 2-7

St Mary's, Saggart 0-12

St Maur's pulled off the shock of the Evening Herald Dublin SFC first round at the Naul on Saturday when they upstaged St Mary's of Saggart in this terrific contest.

Nonetheless, both sides, despite losing key players through injury during the hour in Blaine Kelly (Mary's) and Chris Carty (Maur's), battled on and as the scoreline suggests there was only a kick of the ball in it at the end of this engrossing contest.

Classy Maur's forward Chris Moore had opened the scoring but Mary's were soon into their stride and after Eoin Murray had levelled. The fast-moving Mary's attack then added further scores from corner-forwards David Marshall and Glen Murray.

With Robbie Kelly having a powerful game, Maur's eventually levelled proceedings when the midfielder produced a lovely bit of skill to his escape his marker before sending over an equalising score midway through the half.

However, with six minutes left of the half, Mary's won a penalty following a foot block on Marshall after good initial link-up play between Blaine Kelly and Conor Broderick.

Marshall's effort was excellently saved by Mark Butterly in the Maur's goal, but the mobile Denis Carrigan was to put Mary's back in front before the break, 0-5 to 0-4.

Both teams made changes to their line-ups after the interval with Dublin under-21 keeper Vinnie Whelan introduced at half-forward. And he had immediate impact when his long ball into Ciarán Reddin resulted in the midfielder being dragged down inside the parallelogram with Mark McGrath duly converting the penalty.

And although Kenneth 'Benji' Kelly was to see an effort blocked at the other end, Mary's were back on level terms soon courtesy of frees from Murray and Marshall.

opportunist

However Maur's were back in front after 42 minutes courtesy of a fine opportunist strike from Ciarán Reddin.

And although Chris Moore was to open up a four-point lead soon after, Mary's made a determined comeback with scores from Murray, Michael Coyne and Marshall (two frees and a point from play) seeing them outscore Maur's by 0-5 to 0-1 to level the game with three minutes to go. However, with extra-time looming, Maur's grabbed possession of a shortened kick-out with Conor Maguire duly sending the ball over from the right to hand his team a famous victory.

Scorers - St Maur's: M McGrath (1-0 pen), C Reddin 1-0 each, C Moore (2f) 0-4, D Carrick, C Maguire, C Carty (1f) 0-1 each. St Mary's, Saggart: D Marshall 0-5 (3f), E Murray 0-4 (2f), D Carrigan 0-2, M Coyne 0-1.

St Maur's: M Butterly; R McGinty, E Bollard, R Maguire; O McGinty, N Walsh, C Sweetman; R Kelly, C Reddin; C Maguire, G Kirk, D Carrick; C Carty, C Moore, T Leonard. Subs: M McGrath for Leonard (20), V Whelan for Carrick (ht), P Butler for Sweetman (50).

St Mary's, Saggart: R Redmond; M Coyne, C McCormack, C Dunne; A Marshall, S Kelly, I Marron; D Corrigan, S Walsh; C Broderick, E Murray, B Kelly; D Marshall, D McConn, G Murray. Subs:, K Kelly for B Kelly (28, inj), L Magee for Broderick (44), C Howard for McConn (51).

REF: M Bissett (Parnell's).