News

Leinster club SFC: McNamee fires Rhode into decide

November 8, 2018

Rhode 3-9
Éire Óg 0-4

An exhibition of scoring from Niall McNamee, which saw the corner-forward notch 1-7 – 1-5 from play – helped Offaly champions Rhode overcome Éire Óg by a convincing 14 points yesterday at Dr Cullen Park, Carlow, and advance into the Leinster club SFC final.

Rhode led the home side by 1-4 to 0-3 at the break, after McNamee converted the rebound of his penalty, saved by Michael Hennessy, to the net.

With the wind at their backs, Éire Óg had enough chances to at least be level after the first half-hour but kicked seven wides and only had Alan Curran, Tommy Dowling and Eric McCormack to thank for keeping them in the game.

Early on in the restart, the winners sucker-punched Ógs for two early goals through Anton Sullivan and Paschal Kelleghan and from there on there was simply no coming back for the Carlow men as they only mustered one point against the breeze in the second-half.

Niall Darby and McNamee finished off the scoring for Rhode, who had Shane Sullivan sent off for an off-the-ball-incident late on, which means that their county senior centre-back will now miss their provincial final date for Kilmacud Crokes.