\u200bAIB Leinster club senior football championship quarter-final<\/p>\n
BALLYBODEN ST ENDA’S (DUBLIN) 2-16 CASTLETOWN (WEXFORD) 0-13<\/p>\n
By Paul Keane at Chadwicks Wexford Park<\/p>\n
With a half of football played and the two teams tied, it looked like we could be in for an interesting afternoon in the southeast.<\/p>\n
Ballyboden St Enda’s, twice winners of the AIB Leinster club SFC, and All-Ireland champions in 2016, were significant favourites but had yet to establish their authority.<\/p>\n
It turned out they were just getting going and when they opened up with their best football in the second-half, albeit a wind assisted second-half, they careered to a comfortable quarter-final win.<\/p>\n
County men Colm Basquel, Ross McGarry and Alex Gavin all delivered in spades for the Dublin champions with Basquel contributing 1-4, McGarry five points from play and Gavin the game-clinching 42nd minute goal.<\/p>\n
Galway’s Cein D’Arcy was influential at midfield too while Eamon O’Reilly’s defence only coughed up five points from open play, Castletown’s other eight points coming from four two-point frees that goalkeeper Darragh Brooks converted.<\/p>\n
Ballyboden’s reward for the patient performance and nine-point win is a November 29 semi-final against Tullamore, another road trip for the Firhouse Road faithful.<\/p>\n
A week after the Wexford hurling champions, St Martin’s, took care of reigning Dublin, Leinster and All-Ireland champions Na Fianna, Castletown plotted a similar coup on the same pitch.<\/p>\n
And they made life difficult for the raging favourites for a period of time, quickly establishing their defensive shape and forcing Ballyboden into long stretches of keep ball just outside the arc in the opening half.<\/p>\n
The terms of engagement were set early with Ballyboden holding possession for almost the first three minutes after the throw-in before eventually working an opening that ended in a wide.<\/p>\n
Daire Sweeney fisted wide on that occasion and having filled his boots in Dublin – hitting 2-24 in the knock-out stages of the county championship alone – it was clear he’d have to be patient and bide his time here.<\/p>\n
Basquel wore number 11 for ‘Boden and flitted between the half and full-forward lines, tracked by Joe Ahern all the time.<\/p>\n
Basquel won an 11th minute free that Sweeney converted before sniping a terrific breakaway goal in the 22nd minute.<\/p>\n
Castletown’s Liam Coleman spilled possession at midfield and when Antrim man Peter Healy gathered up the loose ball, it began a rapid counter-attack that ended with Basquel’s goal.<\/p>\n
That tied the game up at 1-2 to 0-5 but even with McGarry clipping three first-half points, Ballyboden couldn’t shake off a Castletown side that lived, and profited, on scraps.<\/p>\n
Goalkeeper Brooks drilled three two-point frees in the opening half, helping the hosts to hit the interval deadlocked on 1-4 to 0-7.<\/p>\n
Still, Ballyboden had the wind after the break and the presumption was that they would kick on and belatedly impose themselves.<\/p>\n
They did precisely that, dominating the third quarter to leave themselves in a commanding position with 15 minute to go.<\/p>\n
The second-half was only four minutes old and already ‘Boden had as many points tallied; one each from McGarry and Ryan O’Dwyer and a Basquel two-pointer.<\/p>\n
Former Dublin forward Ryan Basquel, Colm’s big brother, got in on the action with two points before the team’s second goal arrived in the 42nd minute.<\/p>\n
O’Dwyer and Patrick Dunleavy combined, working the ball into the goalmouth for Gavin to palm in from close range.<\/p>\n
Castletown mustered a couple of scores in response and both Robbie Brooks and Coleman punched the air in celebration each time.<\/p>\n
But not even Darragh Brooks’ fourth two-pointer of the game, from another free, gave them any great traction.<\/p>\n
Ballyboden St Enda’s scorers: Colm Basquel 1-4 (1 tp), Ross McGarry 0-5, Alex Gavin 1-0, Daire Sweeney 0-3 (0-1f), Ryan Basquel 0-2, Ryan O’Dwyer 0-1, Callum O’Dwyer 0-1.<\/p>\n
Castletown scorers: Darragh Brooks 0-8 (4 tpf), Liam Coleman 0-2, Robbie Brooks 0-1, Donnacha Holmes 0-1, Brendan Halpin 0-1.<\/p>\n
Ballyboden St Enda’s: Hugh O’Sullivan; Ryan Baynes, Cathal Flaherty, Brian Bobbett; James Holland, Patrick Warren, Peter Healy; Cein D’Arcy, Alex Gavin; Ryan O’Dwyer, Colm Basquel, Patrick Dunleavy; Ross McGarry, Ryan Basquel, Daire Sweeney.<\/p>\n
Subs: Kieran Kennedy for Healy 51, Darren O’Reilly for Ryan Basquel 51, Callum O’Dwyer for Sweeney 56, David Keogh for Colm Basquel 58, Michael O’Gara for O’Dwyer 58.<\/p>\n
Castletown: Darragh Brooks; Sean O’Hagan, Joe Ahern, Ross Cody; Killian Pierce, Stephen Moloney, Jack Higgins; Rory Heffernan, Liam Coleman; Gavin Kelly, Conor Carty, Donnacha Holmes; Robbie Brooks, Jonathan Bealin, Brendan Halpin.<\/p>\n
Subs: Gavin McNulty for Kelly 52, Doran Daly O’Toole for Holmes 52, Joe Gardiner for Heffernan 57.<\/p>\n
Referee: Kevin Williamson (Offaly).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u200bAIB Leinster club senior football championship quarter-final BALLYBODEN ST ENDA’S (DUBLIN) 2-16 CASTLETOWN (WEXFORD) 0-13 By Paul Keane…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":143979,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,112],"class_list":["post-143978","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143978","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=143978"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143978\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/143979"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=143978"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=143978"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=143978"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}