DCU fresher ‘A’ football team suffered their first defeat of 2013 as they went down at the hands of University of Ulster Jordanstown on a scoreline of 1-11 to 2-6. DCU had already qualified for the knockout stages of this year’s competition prior to the game, however.
DCU had wins against St Mary’s and Queen’s University Belfast as well as a draw against UCD, which ensured they were guaranteed a spot in the last four of this year’s league competition. DCU were full of confidence after previous matches and had the aid of the wind in the opening half.
The visiting side started very well as a point from Dublin man Killian O’Gara got the scoring underway. It got even better for DCU when O’Gara fired the ball into the back of the net minutes later.
UUJ replied with two points without reply to put the Belfast students back in the contest against a very strong wind. But DCU started to dominate around the midfield sector, with midfielder and Mayo All-Ireland minor winner Diarmuid O’Connor scoring DCU’s second goal of the match to put them in control of the contest.
A point from Ruairi Sheehan put the Dublin college six points in front, but the Ulster side finished off the second half very strong as they got three points on the bounce to reduce the gap to just three points at the interval. The score was DCU 2-3, UUJ 0-6.
UUJ now had the aid of a very strong wind as well as conditions which were continuing to get worse, and this gave them a strong advantage in the second half. The Belfast college scored 1-4 without reply in the first 13 minutes of the second half which put them ahead by four points.
Ross Munnelly made a couple of changes which seemed to help the DCU men as a point from Longford man Rory O’Connor put the visitors back in the match, as they now only trailed by three points.
O’Connor, who played with Longford U21s last year, set up an exciting last five minutes as he kicked over his second point of the second half. Towards the end of the match there were some handbags between both sides but neither side was shown a red card.
DCU couldn’t get any closer to the UUJ men as the Belfast college ran out winners by two points on the evening.
DCU had already qualified for the semi-finals of this year’s league campaign prior to the clash with UUJ and will face Cork IT in the semi-final in St Clare’s on Wednesday December 4th at 2pm.
Gavin Cawley
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