Roche Emmets 2-10 Dundalk Gaels 1-10

Roche went clear at the top of Division Two with a deserved victory against Dundalk Gaels at Páirc de Róiste on sunny Sunday afternoon.

In a bruising encounter, Emmets were in the ascendency throughout, goals in the first five minutes from Liam Carthy and Martin Carroll giving the hosts an edge in a brutally physical encounter played before a huge crowd.

The winners ripped through Gaels early on with Carthy impressively finding the net and had a few other major opportunities been taken, the fixture could literally have taken on a soccer guise with Roche firmly in control.

But a lofted delivery from 50 metres by outstanding midfielder Martin Carroll ended up doing the trick, evading Gaels goalkeeper Joe O’Donoghue and putting Emmets 2-0 to 0-1 up.

With Shane Byrne in serious kicking form, giving arguably his finest display for Roche, and Barry O’Hare chipping in, Roche went to the break with a 2-5 to 0-4 lead – the team’s defending catching the eye as well.

And when Conor Carthy ran through and converted the second period’s opening point, Roche were well on route to a fourth triumph from five league outings.

Gaels found their purple patch, however, and with Emmets passing up scoreable opportunities, the gap was down to five at the waterbreak with Tom O’Connell finding the narrowest of spaces to slot past Jamie O’Hare for a visiting three-pointer.

The Dundalk men came forward in their droves late on but could never get any closer than three points as scores from Conor Carthy and Mark Byrne did enough to nudge Emmets towards the spoils.

Indeed, the margin of victory could have been even more comprehensive had O’Donoghue not pulled off a sublime stop from a Dan O’Connell drive in the dying embers.

Roche: Jamie O’Hare; Gerard Browne, David Quigley, James McDonnell; Caoimhín Reilly, Peter Lynch, Seán Dawe; Glen Stewart (0-1), Martin Carroll (1-0); Shane Byrne (0-4), Liam Carthy (1-0), Conor Carthy (0-2); Mark Byrne (0-1), Dan O’Connell, Barry O’Hare (0-2)

Sub: David O’Connell for Reilly (inj)

Gaels: Joe O’Donoghue; James Lynch, David McComish, Mark Hanna (0-1); Emmet Lindsay, Oisín Murray, Gary Shevlin (0-4, frees); Jordan Keating, Derek Crilly (0-1); Luke Murray, Seán Murray, John O’Hare; Jason Clarke (0-1), Thomas O’Connell (1-0), Eanna McArdle (0-3, two frees)

Subs: Kyle Rafferty, Seán McCann, Adrian Rafferty, Aaron Culligan, Chris Sweeney

Referee: Kevin Levins