Valley Rovers 0-10, Shamrocks 1-6
Despite the result this was a very encouraging display from the home side as they lost out to Valley Rovers by the odd point in a game played at Shanbally on Wednesday evening. The fact was that Rovers had a very strong team out on the night and indeed, after moving 0-7 to 0-1 ahead after 20 minutes looked like they were going to give Shamrocks a hurling lesson such was their speed, teamwork and dominance.
However, an understrenght Shamrocks kept themselves in touch with 3 unanswered points coming up to half time through Fergus O’Neill and Seanán Collins with 2.
The selectors asked the players for a committed display in the second half and that they got. Despite being down to 14 men for the last 25 minutes, Shamrocks fought tooth and nail for every ball, in particular the backs who were outstanding. The game was nip and tuck up until the very end but Shamrocks found the extra man down too much to contend with and couldnt quite bridge that gap in the last 5 minutes despite second half points from Barry Mulqueen, Michael O’Neill (who was safe throughout in goal and scored a long range free) and a lovely first time pull from Nicky Hayes which sailed over the bar from out on the wing.
So there is definetly something to work on there and training continues this Friday night with 2 games to follow next Sunday and Wednesday, away to Carrigaline and Ballymartle respectively.
Team: M. O’Neill, J. Tuohy, S. O’Reilly, J. Browne, D. O’Neill, B. Sweeney, A. McCarthy, M. Prout, F. O’Neill, B. Mulqueen, S. Collins, N. Hayes, S. Downey, D. Collins, B. Cusack. Subs used – P. Andrews, J. Shanahan
