St. Michael's 1-11

St. Mary's Magherafelt 0-05

St. Michael's made it back to back wins in this year's MacRory Cup with a resounding nine point win over St. Mary's Magherafelt in Kilyclogher on Tuesday afternoon.

The Enniskillen school had endured a hammering from St. Patrick's Dungannon in their opening encounter in the competition but since then they have shown great character to bounce back with wins over St. Pat's Maghera and St. Mary's to put themselves into contention for an automatic quarter-final spot.

St. Michael's face St. Pat's Armagh tomorrow (Friday) and coach Dom Corrigan believes his side are in for a tough test but he knows that a win would edge them ever closer to one of those automatic positions.

"It is a big game on Friday and a win would put us in sight of an automatic quarter-final spot. However, Armagh are always very tough opposition, they are a physical side and they will test us a lot of areas. We will need to be ready for a real battle," he said.

On Tuesday, the Fermanagh outfit produced a strong performance, going in six points ahead at the break having had the advantage of the breeze before finishing up nine point winners in the end with a solid defensive display against the breeze.

"It was the strong defensive performance against the breeze that laid the foundations for the win. We got six points up at half time but the whole team worked hard defensively in the second half and we deserved our win," said Corrigan.

St. Michael's controlled things in the first half with Tiarnan Bogue and Michael Og McGarrigle impressing at midfield and although Magherafelt opened the scoring with a free from Mark Megarry, St. Michael's replied with a series of points from Lorcan McStravick, Matthew McAloon, Tiarnan Bogue, Colm Jones and Eoghan Curran as they went in at the break with a 0-08 to 0-02 lead.

Having built up a sizeable advantage, the key for St. Michael's in the second half when playing against the wind was to limit Magherafelt in the second half and this they did successfully, restricting the Derry side to only three points.

McStravick and McAloone kept the scoreboard ticking over for St. Michael's during the second period and the game was then over when corner back James McCaffrey broke forward and after a number of one-twos he crashed the ball to the net as St. Michael's eventually ran out 1-11 to 0-05 winners.