Ballinora 7-10, Shamrocks 1-7
Forget the scoreline. With all the struggles with numbers and walkovers that this u14 bunch have had to endure so far this year, it was refreshing to see the lads finally take the field with the required amount of players on Wednesday evening.
Some of the players have been mad keen to just get on with the games in a Shamrocks jersey for the past while and this finally came to pass here. It was basically their first game of hurling in 2 years. The management team of John Herlihy, Tim Hayes and Noel Murphy were adamant that they would get a team on the field and get the lads as much exposure to live hurling as possible so well done to them.
The game itself was enjoyable and despite the scoreline, Shamrocks held themselves well at times. Ballinora had 4 goals on the board inside 15 minutes and led 4-4 to 0-4 at half time, with the Shamrocks scores coming from Joseph O’Keeffe and James Lynam. The Ballinora keeper was very solid inside and thwarted a few Shamrocks goal attempts as well, despite some good efforts from Cillian Hayes and David O’Sullivan (picking up the Camán for the first time in a long time – long may it continue as he has potential)
The lads battled long and hard right until the end – with a few more games and training and the most important of all – playing at home, on the street etc in their spare time – they can become competitive on the scoreboard, as some of the players who tend to have hurleys in their hands more than the others can more then hold their own in this league. For instance, Ruairí Meighan at full back was simply outstanding and was clearing ball off left and right throughout. Joseph O’Keeffe got the Shamrocks goal.
Their next game is a football game at home to Grenagh next Thursday (May 2nd).
Panel on duty: Evan Seymour, Shane Downey, Ruairí Meighan, Cillian O’Mahony, James Lynam, Dylan O’Flaherty, Joseph O’Keeffe, Cillian Hayes, Shane Flavin, Keith O’Donoghue-Howe, David O’Sullivan, Sam Geary.
