Kilmacud Crokes 1-13 St Vincent's 0-12A rare night when all the big name players turned up. Mark Vaughan kicked 1-8 to again serve notice of his vast potential to leave Kilmacud Crokes with one more hurdle to climb to retain their county title against old friends Na Fianna on October 16th.
There were plenty of candidates for the best supporting role but the battle for match winner was a straight tussle between Tomás Quinn and Vaughan.
Quinn landed some early blows by striking two hugely confident frees only for Vaughan to outdo him with a 50-yard free and a point from the touchline.
Back came Quinn with a similar effort before a Ray Cosgrove response kept Crokes three points off the pace.
Thereafter, St Vincent's lost their way as Crokes started putting ball in front of Vaughan, allowing him to get to grips with the close marking of Graham Dent. He kicked four more points and another two from Darren Magee and Brian McGrath left it 0-10 to 0-7 at the break.
However, it was Vaughan who did the most significant damage of the night with a superbly taken goal to push the deficit out to seven points.
Niall Dunne chipped away at the Kilmacud lead, but it was Vaughan who gave watching Dublin manager Paul Caffrey a reminder of his virtuosity with another wonder point to keep St Vincent's in the rear view mirror.
KILMACUD CROKES: D Nelligan; C Kelleher, C Flanagan, N McGrath; B McGrath (0-1), L Óg Ó hEineachain, P Griffin; D Magee (0-2), J Magee; R Cosgrove (0-1), C Murphy, L McBarron; P Burke, M Davoran, M Vaughan (1-8, five frees). Subs: N Caffrey (0-1) for J Magee (15 mins), B Phelan for Caffrey (41 mins), K O'Carroll for McBarron (49 mins), D Maher for Davoren (61 mins).
ST VINCENT'S: M Savage; G Dent, E Brady, J Calvert; A Costelloe, G Brennan, R Fallon; W Lowry, B Manning; P Conlon (0-1), P Gilroy, N Dunne (0-2); K Golden, G Beirne, T Quinn (0-8, five frees, 65). Subs: R Traynor (0-1) for Beirne (half-time), J Ruane for Dent (32 mins), P Mullins for Lowry (62 mins).
Referee: J Rutherford (Ballyboden St Enda's).
