Doyle helps down the ‘Dam for St Mark’s in Leinster Championship

THE INTRODUCTION of Aaron Doyle off the bench helped propel St Mark’s to a 3-8 to 1-9 victory over Amsterdam in the Leinster Junior Football Championship at Parnell Park on Saturday.

Accounting for 1-1 during his time on the pitch, Doyle scored a wonder goal right at the death to tee up the Springfield side for a provincial quarter-final clash with Westmeath champions, Castletown/Finea/Coole/Whitehall GFC this weekend.

Amsterdam enjoyed great success in the early stages of the first-round game with their build-up play, but they failed to put the ball in the net although not for the want of trying.

Within the first-minute, Graham McDermott had hit the upright with a shot from the ground and later troubled St Mark’s netminder Martin Kavanagh with a low-driven effort.

Shortly after, corner-back Luke Ryan’s effort on goal beat Kavanagh, only to be denied by the base of the post.

St Mark’s brought Patrick Murphy back into a sweeper position and it was his quick thinking with Luke Doyle, Jamie Phillips and David Kearns that led to Wayne Crosbie punching to the net.

Just like in the Dublin Championship decider, Murphy was incredibly influential for the Springfield outfit, cleaning up loose ball around the backline and making penetrating runs to unlock the opposition defence.

Either side of Crosbie’s goal, McDermott found a yard of space to fire over for the Dutch.

Both Crosbie and Phillips added to the tally for the Dublin champions to take them into the first water-break 1-2 to 0-3 ahead.

McDermott proved to be a real handful for the Mark’s defenders, with the Galway-native splitting the posts two more times in the second-quarter.

However, the scores of the game came from Mark’s centre-forward David Kearns, when he bent two near-identical points over the bar off his left boot from the right corner of the pitch.

Amsterdam started to deliver on their high-intensity and work-rate when Sean Horan and McDermott propelled them into a 1-4 to 0-8 lead shortly after the half-time interval.

However, all of their brilliant work in building from the back to overtake on the scoreboard was undone when Joey Cannon blasted to the net for the Black and Amber.

Cannon made a lung-bursting run from centre-back to fly through on goal after excellent play involving Aaron Doyle, Murphy, Phillips, Dean Kavanagh, Kearns and Graham Whelan.

Despite momentum going with Mark’s, Amsterdam’s full-forward McDermott never went away.

He converted a penalty and later reduced the deficit to two-points after Murphy and Kearns had combined to push Mark’s ahead.

But the introduction of Doyle into midfield turned the tide in favour of Mark’s, as his energy and composure on the ball helping his team take control.

In added-time, with just two-between the sides, David Glynn fielded Kavanagh’s kick-out and sent Doyle through on goal.

The 24-year-old side-stepped two players before belting the ball into the top-right corner of the net, bagging his side’s third goal and the insurance score to see them through to the next round.