Footballers brave effort falls short

DIVISION 2A FOOTBALL LEAGUE Glanworth 1-5 Rockchapel 1-10

Our brilliant league campaign came to a disappointing end last Saturday in Glanworth in miserable conditions after suffering a five point defeat to a determined Rockchapel side. A win would have seen us in the semi-finals but with this win Rockchapel took our place instead. Once again the effort of our lads could not be faulted. 100% was given but they were up against a really good side, shown by their county title of two years ago.

The game itself was keenly contested throughout with only a few points between the sides. They came right at us from the throw in and scored a nice point with their first attack. We responded in three minutes when Pierre O’Driscoll caught a long ball and was brought down for a penalty. David Pyne duly stepped up and dispatched it with brilliant ease. Rockchapel were taking control though and hit a purple patch to kick three points in 3 minutes to go ahead once again. We settled and started to make things harder for them. The wind blowing strongly across the field made things hard for both sides and as a result scores were at a minimum.

On the 19th minute they kicked a free which we replied to in the 27th minute through a free from David Pyne. They would kick the last score of the half with a point to leave it at the break 1-1 to 0-6.

We needed to up things in the second half and we started very brightly with a point from our first attack through Pierre O’Driscoll to reduce the gap to one. We had plenty of the ball in the next few minutes but we couldn’t convert the few chances we had. Eight minutes into the half they struck for the decisive score of the match.

They attacked against the run of play and were awarded a penalty which they duly buried and two minutes later they added a point to go five clear. To be fair to our lads we fought back and had points from David Pyne, Jessie Walsh and Emmett Sheehan to reduce the gap to two with thirteen minutes to go. But try as hard as we could, we could not get any closer and they proceeded to add three points of their own to win by five points.

Yes, it was a disappointing result but there are plenty of positives to take from the league campaign, least of which is that as we finished in the top five so we will be playing in Division 3 League next year. There is only a few weeks to the championship so the lads will be heading into it with plenty of confidence and I’m sure it will be a long campaign. Well done boys, here’s to the championship.

Team: Ciaran Cotter, John Blackburn, William Blackburn, Thomas Condon, Peter Condon, Ger O’Neill, Jerome Fitzgibbon, Ross Murphy, Rob O’Driscoll, Jessie Walsh, David Pyne, Emmett Sheehan, Shane O’Riordan, John O’Sullivan and Pierre O’Driscoll. Subs: Marc Moloney, Colm Whelton and Harvey McGrath.

AVONDHU

I want to say well done to the Glanworth contingent involved with both Avondhu sides who won the 1st round of the senior championship. To the hurlers of Stevie Condon, David O’Sullivan and Darragh O’Brien under the management of Joe O’Brien and Arthur O’Keeffe in logistics, they defeated Carbery 2-23 to 3-15. Very well done. By the time these notes will be out they will have played Muskerry in the semi-final and we wish them the very best of luck.

The footballers of David Pyne and Darragh O’Brien who helped Avondhu 3-10 to 0-14 deserve great congratulations as well. It is great to see lads from Glanworth doing well on the senior stage.

ST DOMINICS FIXTURES

Thursday, 30 June U15 football v Dromtarriffe in Glanworth at 7.30pm; Saturday, 2 July U13 football v St Peters in Rockchapel at 11am; Monday, 4 July U12 hurling v Kilshannig in Shanballymore at 7pm.