Boston Northeast GAA

This Junior A tussle got off to an exciting enough start.
Alex Hamilton opened the scoring for Cork on 2 minutes with a nicely kicked point after a nicely worked ball from his half back line. Minutes later Cork were handed a golden chance for goal but what seemed like indecision saw the ball hit the upright and rebound back into play only to be well recovered by Gaels. Connemara Gaels gradually showed good communication with each other as the first half wore on. Gaels pumped a high ball in towards the square and after a small confusion it was goal time for Brian Joyce who put the goalkeeper the wrong way to claim his reward. In truth Cork’s defense did appear a small bit confused on a few occasions in the first half but despite that Joe Regan had some glowing moments in a red shirt. Cork provided plenty of possibilities in attack but were unable to finish what they started.
Michael Kelly , Gaels’ dynamic midfielder showed great vision on a number of occasions. For the remainder of the first half Cork chipped away  taking most of the points on offer, leaving the half at 5 points for themselves and 1-02 for Gaels.

 

Both teams stormed out in the second half with an obvious skip in their stride. Much better distribution overall by Cork added to their tally. Gales were marking a lot tighter than before and they were closing down their opponents more regularly. Ciaran O’Driscoll kicked a superb point from play for Cork and his counterpart for Gaels Pat McDonnell did what was asked of him in return.

A well taken goal for Cork , and Mark Cahallane ten minutes into the second half opened a fairly sparse scoring period. In the next few minutes, Gaels had two recurring chances at goal but Corks defense frustrated their efforts yet again until Gaels’ determination pushed that bit harder to finally hit the net. Gaels’ half back line showed signs of fatigue with minutes left. With fatigue comes frustration and the result of these two evil’s usually ends up with a free for the other team. Cork got that free but a wide kick from James Corry wasn’t helped by the light breeze. Another wide followed for Cork minutes later, albeit affordable . Despite some patches of hard work by both teams the scoreline reflected a fair story. A last minute well cleared ball by Cork defense stopped Gaels last gasp effort for goal. A free on the edge of the square seconds later for Gaels gave them a point and the sound of the final whistle.

 

 

 

 

Shannon Blues would surely have wanted to emulate their last impressive Senior outing when they played St Christopher’s on Sunday. As luck would have it Christopher’s opened the scoring swiftly adding two points before Shannon Blues could answer minutes later with their opening score from play. Impressive work rate from Blues’ Colm McGee brought the Blues back to the table early on. It was a pleasure to watch the keenly contested Midfield battle between Dan Kenneally and Stephen Gilmartin who both showed well for their teams. Dan was unlucky ten minutes in to have not converted his first chance to point. Blues’ Stephen Gilmartin lived up to his fine performance the last day out when he worked  a lot of ball through to his team mates waiting in the forward line.
A very tight encounter ensued between these two teams in a point for point format for a good fifteen minutes. Shannon Blues goalkeeper Declan Hawes was largely untroubled in the first period and his back line did just enough necessary to keep trouble at bay. What I like to call ‘a nice Dessie Farrell move’ by Paudie Kenneally, of Christopher’s , ended up with him scoring a nice point from what easily could have become a more difficult angle if only one foot went astray. At this point David Shallow joined the ranks of the scoring  forwards to score superbly after sending his marker in the other direction. Blues’ answered right back with Stephen O’Malley’s boot converting for a point. Blues came to life a lot more and leveled the score to 5 points each with ten minutes left on the clock. St Christopher’s then sprung into action and answered back with a single point to keep their lead intact going in at half time.
At the beginning of the half Christopher’s pointed to bring them level with Blues’ after hard work by S Kelly.
Christopher’s will be happy with the amount of ball won by D Fitzpatrick early in the second half. Points for each team followed in succession to keep this a one point competition in Christopher’s favor.

A controversial decision by the referee enabled Blues’ to escape a close free in their danger area. The resulting clearance was squandered to the by line and Christopher’s will believe that justice was served. Blues’ tended to make more work than was needed out of a lot of their second half possession while St Christopher’s movement off the ball enabled their cause just enough to keep their opponents at bay. Performances from Paudie Kenneally and N Ryan shone for Christopher’s while Blues’ men S O’Mahony and B Maloney played well. St Christopher’s, not happy being level at 7 points each worked the ball very well into Blues’ square where the tap to goal was taken well. Blues’ half back line allowed too much space to Christopher’s throughout the second half and a lot of this cost them scores. A clean and skillful game of Football was had, that’s a good thing any day. A great shot from Blues last gasp was bravely saved by St Christopher’s number 15 to close out any thoughts Blues  had of winning .