Dunboyne find Saints pose too many questions

St Francis 3, Dunboyne 1 Little went right for Dunboyne as they lost out to St Francis in the Gilligan Cup final at Swords on Sunday. This was Dunboyne's first appearance in the final, but on a sizzling day they found St Francis just too difficult to contain. The Dublin side have a fine tradtion in cup games and has gone through many tranformations going out of existence at one time before reforming and setting up camp in the Leinster Senior League. They had too much guile and experience for a battling Dunboyne side in this encounter. The Meath side struggled throughout the 90 minutes to create any openings and found themselves defending for most of the afternoon. The sides were level 1-1 a the interval however in the second-half St Francis moved up another gear leaving their opponents to play catch up. Made up of a group of young players Dunboyne had to rely on the acrobatics of their goalkeeper Justin O'Neill (pictured) to save them from conceding at least three more goals. Dunboyne did well to get to the final defeating teams like Glenville, St Mochta's, Lucan Utd and St James Gate. However, St Francis proved a bridge too far. The start of the game was held up because of a bizarre incident when referee Simon Rogers requested a photographer to move behind the barriers. She refused correctly insisting that she had the right to be inside the barriers. After a lenghty discussion a compromise was reached when the photographer moved back a metre or two, but stayed inside the barrier. Once the action did get underway St Francis zipped the ball around and created some early problems for Dunboyne. They went ahead on 21 minutes when Dunboyne left-back Chris Sylvester was penalised for taking down St Francis defender Paul Dowling inside the the box. St Francis midfielder Gavin Doyle slotted home the penalty the first time. However, he had to take it again because of encroachment. It made no difference. The net bulged again and the Dublin side were on their way. Despite the busy presence of captain Andy Farrell, Ciaran Carr and Colin Cassidy in midfield Dunboyne found it very difficult to create openings. Then just before the interval, and very much against the run of play, they equalised. Farrell whipped the ball in from a corner. For once the St Francis defence struggled to clear and Ross O'Toole was in the right place at the right time to fire to the net. The goal gave the Dunboyne supporters in a crowd of approximately 300 real hope that their side might go on from there. Any optimism they felt turned to gloom just two minutes into the second-half when St Francis broke and Anthony Shortt who neatly guided the ball to the corner of the net. It was just what Dunboyne did not want as they sought to resurrect their ambitions and on 67 minutes it got worse when Craig Gardiner headed home. The nearest Dunboyne came to getting a second came after 72 minutes when a fine move involving Brian Martin and Stephen McCrossan ended with Farrell having his shot cleared off the line. Most of the action took place at the Dunboyne end with O'Neill producing a string of fine saves to keep St Francis at bay. Dunboyne needed to be creating goal chances at the other end to redress the balance. They were unable to do that in the closing stages and St Francis prevailed. St Francis - E Rogers; K Connaughton, J Pluck, C Gardiner, P Dowling, K Lynam, Y Belhout, G Doyle, C Bateman, A Shortt, D Long. Subs - P Dunne for Shortt 81mins; K Kelly for Long 86m; J Frehill ofr Doyle 91m. Dunboyne - Justin O'Neill; Terry McAuley, Chris Sylvester, Ross O'Toole, Brendan Lee, Ciaran Carr, Colin Cassidy, Stephen McCrossan, Danny O'Reilly, Andy Farrell, Mick Conniffe. Sub - Brian Martin for Conniffe 52 mins. Referee - Simon Rogers (Dublin).