In what was a complete mismatch as Brian Dillons completely swept aside White’s Cross in the second round of the JAHC as they won by a comfortable 15 points.
In fairness to White’s Cross they were missing five crucial players for this already tough task but they were simply blown away by a superb Dillons side.
In John Horgan , Dillons have one of the most influential players around. He got another 1-07 in this game but his sublime quality was matched in this game by midfielder Tomas Long and Darragh Brosnan who had an exceptional game at left half-back.
Dillons will have far tougher games than this but to their credit their concentration levels never waned. Their defence stifled White’s Cross in the first half as they reduced to their opponents to four points, three of which were from frees.
Indeed, White’s Cross opened the scoring in the fifth minute from midfielder Conor Buckley’s free but they did not score for the next 18 minutes. In the meantime Dillons well and truly ran the show.
After replying with three John Horgan points before the ninth minute, Dillons went 10 minutes without scoring but ended their drought with a goal when their centre-forward lashed the ball along the ground and sent it fizzing to the bottom corner.
Three minutes later it was pretty much game over as John Noonan showed great reactions to wallop home the rebound as Cillian Brosnan powerful strike was well saved. It was 2-03 to 0-01 at stage. Conor Buckley scored 0-03 before half but was outscored by Dillon’s four points to leave it 2-08 to 0-04 at the interval.
Midfield dynamo Tomas Long whacked over a glorious score a mere 10 seconds into the 2nd half while a minute later team-mate Keith McCormack took advantage of some poor White’s Cross defending to stroke the sliothar over the bar.
Indeed White’s Cross were struggling to keep faith at this stage and were looking ragged in defence with Dillons increasing the lead to 2-13 to 0-05 by the 39th minute mark. White’s Cross then got their first point of the second half a minute later before conceding another two. They then got a goal in the 46th minute when Shane Barry was there to take advantage of rare slip up from the Brian Dillons defence.
That was their last score of the game though with Dillons adding another two points late to complete a devastatingly convincing2-17 to 1-05 win.
White’s Cross: Shane Cahill, Sean O’Gorman, James Cooney, Brian Murphy, Donal Kelly, Eoin Murnane, Rob Long, Conor Buckley(0-05, 0-03 frees), Breandán Murnane, Richie Sherlock, Barry Murphy, Thomas Meade, Dave Buckley, Kevin Buckley, Shane Barry (1-00). Subs: Michael Meade for Dave Buckley (35) Conor Kelleher for Michael Meade (47) Paul Walsh for Richard Sherlock (50) Sean C Burke for Barry Murphy (52)
Brian Dillons: T. Triggs, D. McCormack, D Rodgers, N Fahy, D Murphy, M White, D Brosnan (0-01), T Long (0-02), C McCarthy (0-04), K McCormack(0-02), J Horgan (1-07, 0-04 frees), C Brosnan, J Noonan (1-00), B Barrett, P O’Brien (0-01). Subs: D Coughlan (0-01)for B Barrett (41) M Carey for J Noonan (52)