Rampant Roscrea Brush Nenagh AFC aside

Roscrea United 4-0 Nenagh AFC

Roscrea United welcomed Premier Division Champions Nenagh Afc to Kennedy Park on Sunday last and made a huge statement after running out 4-0 victors. Goals from Brian Moloney (2), Paul Kirwan and Darren O’Connor shocked the NT&DL and in turn left Nenagh with alot to think about after suffering their biggest league defeat in recent years.
Roscrea started the game brightly and their cause was helped early on as both Nenagh centre halves Mark McKenna and Mark Cahill were substituted with injuries. Through this Roscrea’s Brian Moloney was proving to be a constant nuisance and didn’t let the new players settle whatsoever and this paid dividends on 10 minutes when he burst down the middle and was fouled as he was about to shoot from distance. Moloney duly brushed himself off and took the resulting free kick which was deflected into the bottom corner to leave Nenagh custodian Aaron Savage with no chance. Almost immediately though Nenagh looked to have woken up and after some very good passing in the middle, Ryan Gilmartin found himself bearing down on goal and neatly dinked the ball over the onrushing Keith McMahon only to see Roscrea Captain John Cordial race back and stop the ball on the line. Nenagh continued to press and some great play down the right seen Ryan Gilmartin volley the ball but not anywhere near the target. After this Roscrea assumed control once again and by now Evan Fitzpatrick, Joe Moloney and Brian Moloney constantly caused problems for the makeshift Nenagh defence and worse was to come as it was plain to be seen that Savage in the goal was also carrying a knock, something that would play a crucial part in Roscrea’s second. On 35′ Savage tried a short pass only to direct it to Paul Kirwan who ran through and shot the ball, forcing Savage into a smart save but the ball trickled across to the impressive Moloney who rolled the ball into the now empty net and sent the home crowd into delirium. The half was then controlled by Roscrea who kept the ball well and made sure their would be no mistakes before the half time whistle.

roscrea utd

The half time team talks would certainly have been very different with United Manager David Nash hoping for more of the same and AFC Manager David Rooney looking for some fight in his side. Well indeed it was Nenagh who started the second half best and on 49′ Dan Dalton shot from distance twice but McMahon was equal to both and saved well. The comeback was short lived though as on 55 a failed Nenagh clearance seen Kirwan jumping backwards from 12 yards and heading the ball over the helpless Savage to score his 13th of the season. The game turned into a damp squib thereafter with Roscrea just looking to see out the game and Nenagh looking like they had lost all hope. This remained the pattern until the final few minutes when Roscrea put the icing on the cake through a Darren O’Connor volley which made it 4-0 after Nenagh failed to clear a corner.

After the match Nenagh Manager Davey Rooney offered no excuses only to say “the better team won on the day and we just have to pick ourselves up and bounce back”.

David Nash was unavailable for comment.

A huge win for Roscrea and as we reported earlier in the season, the main challenge to Nenagh Dominance in NT&DL football could very well come from Roscrea.

NTSC Man Of The Match:
Well we feel the man of the match was an easy pick here. Some fine performances from the home side which included Joe Moloney, Evan Fitzpatrick, John Cordial and Paul Kirwan all paled in comparison to Brian Moloney who was a constant threat throughout and never stopped trying, topped off with 2 goals He’s our NTSC man of the match.