Billings surveys his options

Gaelic Games Colours matches: Normally any distraction will bring students out of the study halls, but clearly few were tempted by yesterday's matches, hosted this year by UCD.

Even the few who were tempted didn't stick around for the climax of the football such was the obvious domination of the home team.

Despite the reminder Trinity had in fact won the last fixture, their first such success in seven years, the expectation was that UCD would win handily. Which they did. Several of their big guns were kept in reserve and still they had too much class and depth for their city-centre rivals.

Trinity showed glimpses of potential, and briefly led in the opening minutes. They were missing a couple of their higher-profile players and manager Vincent Kelly was more intent on fine-tuning the preparations for their Sigerson Cup campaign, which begins next Thursday with the first-round match against the Garda Colleges.

The rivalry between the two colleges rarely showed its face here, and the mood was more of the friendly nature than anything competitive. "Well that was our third game in five days," admitted Kelly, "and fatigue was our biggest problem. But we're still positive about how things are going heading into the Sigerson Cup, especially since we have the likes of Kerry's Marc Ó Sé and Dublin's Barry Kennedy to come back for us."

Kelly's counterpart at UCD, Dave Billings, was also happy to rotate as many players as possible, clearly building towards another Sigerson campaign, which in recent years has proved disappointing. After building up a 1-9 to 0-4 lead at half-time Billings was soon introducing players almost at random.

JP Casey of Westmeath stood out most in UCD's opening half of near dominance, scoring 0-5 in total, including two of the more memorable points from play.

Kerry's Billy Sheehan added the goal on 18 minutes and two quick points from Offaly's Niall McNamee had UCD 1-6 to 0-3 in front. Forwards Michael Lyng, John Mannion and Malachy McNulty had all opened well for Trinity but their supply was soon running short. UCD simply controlled midfield.

After the break Trinity raised a brief rally, prompted by courageous goalkeeping from Meath's Kielan Daly. Lyng added a second free and Mannion sneaked a goal with a low-flying ball to close the gap to four points, 1-9 to 1-5. But UCD shifted up a couple of gears and coasted home, introducing the likes of Mark Ward, Peter McNulty and Daniel Davey to good effect.

UCD: C Mullin (Westmeath); C Fagan (Kildare), C Evans (Offaly), J McCarthy (Limerick); E Ó Cuiv (Galway), J Donoghue (Meath), P Griffin (Dublin): D Magee (Dublin), J Sherry (Fermanagh); K McMahon (Cork) 0-1, C Murphy (Dublin) 0-2, N McNamee (Offaly) 0-2; J Conroy (Westmeath) 0-1, B Sheehan (Kerry) 1-0, JP Casey (Westmeath) 0-5, two frees. Subs: D Walsh (Dublin) for Mullin, P Navin (Mayo) for Evans, B McGrath (Dublin) 0-1 for Griffin, M Ward (Meath) 0-1 for Magee, P McNulty (Laois) 0-1, a free for Casey (all half-time), D Davey (Sligo) 0-1 for Sheehan, (33 mins), C Evans for Murphy, (50 mins), P Griffin for Conroy (55 mins).

TRINITY COLLEGE: K Daly (Meath); R Lynch (Dublin), F Wallace (Wexford), J Sharkey (Roscommon); M McMullen (Dublin), B Teahan (Kerry), O Diamond (Derry); E King (Cavan), S Maguire (Cavan); M McNulty (Laois) 0-1, P Connolly (Dublin), M O'Flynn (Cork); M O'Dwyer (Clare), M Lyng (Cavan) 0-2, both frees, J Mannion (Roscommon) 1-1. Subs: J McVann (Sligo) for Teahan, D McTernan (Sligo) 0-2, both frees for O'Dwyer (both 20 mins), R Kearns (Meath) for McMullen (37 mins), P Banbridge (Cavan) for Sharkey (47 mins).

Referee: J Turner (Dublin).