O’Boyle’s accuracy kills off St Mary’s in Leonard Cup

Danske Bank Leonard Cup semi-final
Cross & Passion Ballycastle 4-7 St Mary’s CBGS Belfast 1-5
In yesterday’s Danske Bank Leonard Cup semi-final in Magherafelt Cross & Passion Ballycastle turned the tables on St Mary’s CBGS who had beaten this same group in the Gallagher Cup final last May.
The key player for Ballycastle was Glenarriff forward Michael O’Boyle who collected a superb 3-4 over the hour.
There was little to separate the teams up until half-time – apart from O’Boyle’s penalty goal after 11 minutes that opened Ballycastle’s account and they led by 1-4 to 0-3 at the break.
However CPC tightened their grip in defence only allowing St Mary’s a Darragh Murphy point until the 55th minute, when Eoin Treanor’s point effort rather fortuitously ended up in the net.
Prior to that O’Boyle had converted a 65 in the 36th minute, caught the poc out and fired in his second goal. Ten minutes later he brought his total to 3-4 with sub Christy McAuley replying to Treanor’s goal five minutes from time with the fourth Ballycastle goal.
The second semi-final between St Louis Ballymena and St Killian’s Garron Tower will take place later in the week.
Cross & Passion : Michael O’Boyle 3-4, 1-0 pen, 0-3 frees, Christy McAuley 1-0, Damian Quinn 0-1, Ryan McMullan 0-1, Caolan O’Connor 0-1.
St Mary’s: Eoin Treanor 1-2, 0-2 frees, Jay Burns 0-2, Darragh Murphy 0-1