TI / St Pats beat UL in League opener

Tipperary Institute / St Pats 3 -1 University of Limerick “C”
Robin Murray 55 John Dunne 5
David Brophy 70
Phil O’Brien 82

Tipperary Institute / St Pats got their season off to a good start yesterday with a win against University of Limerick. The UL team, who consist of players from their Crowley Cup panel, are new entrants to the league with their first team and ‘freshers’ team having competing in the higher divisions last season.

TI, who topped the Second south division last year, went behind very early, when UL sprung the offside trap to leave their centre forward Dunne one on one with Dargan in the TI goal, where he made no mistake. The Tipperary students gradually played their way back into the game and overall had the better of the half. While Hensey and Brophy had chances for Tipperary Institute the half finished at 1-0. Upon the restart TI continued to apply pressure but when the equaliser came after 10 minutes, it owed much to fortune as a rushed clearance rebounded off the advancing Murray past the stranded Limerick keeper.

TI continued their dominance, but Limerick came very close to once again taking the lead when, following a corner which wasn’t clear, a deflected shot was touched around the post by an excellent reaction save from Dargan. At this point the next goal was always going to have a big bearing on the outcome of the game. It came when man of the match Martin Fitzgerald won possession on the right and quickly curled in a low cross which was headed home beautifully just in front of the keeper by the in rushing Brophy.

The game was sealed with about 10 minutes to go when Phil O’Brien received a great switch on the left side of the box, controlled and slotted past the keeper from a tight angle. The Tipperary students go to Cork to take on Northside Campus of Further Education next week. More information on www.thirdlevelfootball.ie.

Tipperary Institute: Pierce Dargan, David Shannon, Dean Grannell, Rob Browne, Arron Keenan, Phil O’Brien, Robin Murray (82), Martin Fitzgerald, David Brophy, Simon Hensey (60), Tony Green (65) Subs: David Bourke (60), Gearoid O’Connor (65), Mark Flynn (82), Ray Willis, Mark Murphy Management: Michael Cox, Eddie Fanning, Tom Gleeson

University of Limerick ‘C’: Rory Griffin, Sean Keating, John Callanan, Patrick Passath, Rob Phelan, Cian McCaffrey, Sean Wason, Declan Bennett, John Dunne, Ronan Kavanagh, Yoel Abarracin Subs: Michael Cox, Stephen Martin, Vanit Tohsanguanpun, Chris Horan, Jason Kearns, Anthony Greaney, Ruiri Mac An Tuile Manager: Liam Duffy