Newcestown 3-13, Shamrocks 2-6
The long trip to Newcestown on Sunday afternoon last resulted in a 10 point defeat to the home side. A couple of things need to be pointed out here before we move onto a match report.
This was Shamrocks first match since the death of our teammate and friend Kieran Hegarty RIP and a minutes silence was observed impecably before the throw in by both sides, the 26 Shamrocks players togged off linking arms in rememberence of Kieran. As a result of the recent tragic events, Shamrocks preperation in hurling had been seriously curtailed so this was really a trip into the unknown in more ways than one as it had also been many years since we had played Newcestown. Also, we were missing 4 of our more prominent players through work and injury. It really is times like this that we need everyone on board, for the difficult championship game against Valley Rovers on Wednesday night, in Ballinhassig, at 7.30pm. However, as pointed out, after the earlier struggles with getting hurlers out on the field, it was great to see 26 players, young and old, ready for action in a Shamrocks jersey down in West Cork.
Newcestown played with the strong breeze in the first half and led 0-9 to 1-4 at halftime, Dave O’Neill with the Shamrocks goal along with Darragh O’Sullivan and Joseph Shanahan from play and Mickey Prout from a free accounting for the points. It wasnt a bad return for a rusty team in the circumstances and Shamrocks were well in it turning to play with the breeze in the second half.
However, the gap in the pure hurling standard between the two teams was way more evident in the second half and despite Shamrocks somehow drawing back to 4 points down with 3 minutes left, Newcestown got 2 goals in injury time to run out comfortable winners. Stephen Keane with the Shamrocks goal.
For obvious reasons, things are rushed going into Thursday nights championship match but all we can do is drive on to training on Tuesday evening at 7.30pm. Hopefully the game will bring us on.
Team: C. O’Sullivan, J. Browne, D. Roche, S. Andrews, S. Bourke, A. McCarthy, C. Kidney, M. Prout, J. Shanahan, S. O’Neill, F. O’Neill, G. Ronayne, D. O’Neill, S. Keane, D. O’Sullivan. Subs (used) – T. O’Mahony, R. Twomey, J. Tuohy, J. Sweeney, C. Ronayne, (not used) S. Downey, J. Wilson, P. Brady, P. Andrews, D. Bourke, B. Cusack.
