Lisgoold 5-6, Shamrocks 2-7
Lisgoold finished with an unanswered 2-2 in the last 3 minutes to claim the league points in their “home” game against Shamrocks in Shanbally on Sunday morning. Lisgoolds pitch is closed at the moment as they develop their dressing rooms so they are playing all their home games away, just like their u14’s yesterday and their u12’s next Saturday.
For such a talented group of Shamrocks players, this display can only be described as extremely disappointing. The amount of errors made was almost off the charts – numerous sloppy kick and hand passes, slipping, falling, loose control of the ball, soloing into cover, black cards, wrong options, sliced free kicks, bad passes and a single minded determination to try to walk the ball into the Lisgoold net, resulting in the Lisgoold defence being able to get back and get their bodies, hands, whatever in the way. It was hard to watch at times from a Shamrocks viewpoint and the management were extremely frustrated by the end.
The underfoot conditions were tough and the very strong wind, as it so often does in Shanbally’s bottom pitch at this time of year, blew right down across the pitch making playing conditions hard for both teams. Lisgoold went ahead early on with a goal and a point but Shamrocks started to get on top and controlled possession totally up to half time but numerous attempts at walking the ball into the Lisgoold net went abegging. David Andrews did score a Shamrocks goal and Andrew O’Grady scored some nice frees into the teeth of the wind but while Shamrocks should have been ahead at the break due to all their possession, they faced the second half full of hope because they were now playing down the hill. HT Lisgoold led 2-2 to 1-4.
One sensed that it was only a matter of time before Shamrocks went in front and pulled away and 8 minutes in, David Andrews put Shamrocks 4 points up with his second goal after good work from Andrew O’Grady. This should have been the catalyst for Shamrocks to kick in but things went badly wrong from this point. Some calamitous Shamrocks passing in defence was punished by Lisgoold and they were right back in it with a gift of a goal. The next 12 minutes were scoreless as more Shamrocks attacked broke down in front of goal. Shamrocks kicked a vital point from Brendan Crowley to settle them down a bit and they led by 2 points again with 10 minutes to go.
But Lisgoold started to get on top and pressed for the last period of the game and were rewarded with 2 monster points to draw level. The Shamrocks challenge had collapsed by this point and it was no surprise to see Lisgoold go ahead with a goal with 2 minutes to. They added another goal and a point as the Shamrocks lads were out on their feet. So, a most disappointing start to the season for Shamrocks.
Team: C. Corkery, S. Kelleher, C. O’Grady, C. Hayes, S. Kidney, C. Scriven, D. Scriven, E. Desmond, D. Andrews, A. O’Grady, B. Crowley, K. Murphy, R. Meighan, M. Fleming, S. Flavin, C. Hayes.
