DCU Dochas Eireann 2-20
UCD 0-14
Fitzgibbon Hurling League
A superb team performance from the DCU men started their season in style with an easy 12-point victory over UCD in St Clare’s on Wednesday night in the Fitzgibbon Hurling League, with Dublin native Colin Currie topping a magnificent 1-10 score for the winners.
DCU took control from the start setting UCD on the back foot with two points slotted home in the opening five minutes from Currie and left half forward Stephen O’Brian.
A glorious display of hardworking hurling occurred five minutes in after a DCU puck out resulted in a darting run from O’Brian through the UCD defence, which allowed him to fist the sliotar across to corner forward Paul Kelly, who blasted it home into the net.
UCD eventually found their feet, scoring four unanswered points, three of which were from free pucks scored by Stephen Quirlee, DJ Faran and former Young Player of the Year Tadhg de Búrca.
Although UCD took control of the puck outs for the majority of the first half, they never seemed to push on from this, totalling eight wides in the first half and allowing DCU to take control of the scoreboard with repeated points from Currie, John Donnelly and Kelly.
Trailing by five points with five minutes to go in the first half, the men in blue kept calm and fired home three noble unanswered points from Joe Millerick, Matthew Geraghty and the darting wing back Craig Butler to put only two points between the teams.
Two final frees from Currie extended DCUs lead further with the first half ending 1-08 to 0-07.
The men in amber took complete grasp of the second half, denying UCD any form of breakthrough.
Perhaps the defining moment of the match came in the third minute of the second half, when DCU full forward Donal Burke drove through the heart of the UCD defence only to be pulled down and awarded a penalty which was nail into the bottom left of the goal by Currie.
Some beautiful display of passing and shot accuracy added to DCU victory with Burke, Ed Delaney and O’Brian all placing their names on the scoreboard.
UCD attempted to close the hugely divided gap with frees scored by Matthew Geraghty and Faran but to no avail, with four more frees scored by Currie with a heavy breeze advantage to end the match.
With players returning from club level in the next number of weeks, no doubt this will add severe strength to the DCU men who move forward to Maynooth next Tuesday.
Top scorer Currie, speaking after the game, called the performance a “great win”, especially after so many players had come off recent club championship clashes.
“Coming off the back of playing championship at the weekend I thought the lads showed a great attitude”, he said.
“I was delighted with my performance, and the lads showed great attitude coming off big games, our determination and positivity got us there, it was a great performance all round.”
DCU Dochas Eireann: Cian O’Daly, Darragh Byrne, Eoin O’Donnell, Darragh Brennan, Darragh Grey, Conor Delaney, Paul O’Dea, Ed Delaney(0-01), Liam Fathy, Jason Byrne, John Donnelly(0-03), Stephen O’Brian(0-03), Colin Currie(1-10), Donal Burke(0-02), Paul Kelly (1-01). Subs used: James Mullally, Conor Burke, Oisin Lanagan, John Curran, Brian Crowdel.
UCD: Darragh O’Callaghan, Gary Molloy, Brian Quigley, Rory Purcell, Craig Butler(0-01), Tadhg de Búrca(0-01), Vincent Doyle, Padraic Guinan, Seamus Flanagan, Stephen Quirlee (0-02), Matthew Geraghty(0-05), JJ Ryan, Joe Millerick (0-01), DJ Faran (0-04), Sean Casey.
Conor Breslin