Courcey Rovers 0-22, Shamrocks 1-11
Shamrocks were knocked out of the championship at the semi final stage after a polished performance from Courcey Rovers (second team) in Ballygarvan on Saturday night. Courcey Rovers were simply better than Shamrocks throughout the hour and apart from a couple of 5 minute spells when Shamrocks did most of their scoring, they were full value for the win.
Shamrocks shot 16 wides in total, 10 in the first half and crucially 8 in the first 11 minutes when playing with the wind. This obviously didn’t help their cause early in the game when a good start was needed. At the other end, Courcey Rovers were far more economical and were ahead 0-6 to 0-2 midway through the fistr half. They had stretched it to 0-8 to 0-3 thereafter but Shamrocks kept at it and their fine play was rewarded with 3 points in the lead up to halftime to leave the score 0-9 to 0-7 in favour of Courcey Rovers. Andrew O’Grady, Stephen O’Neill, Barry Mulqueen (brilliant in the first half at centre back) and David Andrews were among the Shamrocks scorers and they were well in the game at HT, especially as their halfback line in particular was on top and hurling a world of ball into the forwards.
Whatever happened, Courcey Rovers took over after the restart and scored 4 fast points in 4 minutes between the 7th and 11th minutes of the second half to stretch ahead 0-16 to 0-9. They were in total control now but with 14 minutes left and with multiple positional switches made, Stephen O’Neill scored a Shamrocks goal to bring the deficit back down to 4 points, 0-16 to 1-9. However this was as close as Shamrocks got; Courcey Rovers simply went up the field and started to score for fun all over again and put the game to bed inside 5 minutes with another 5 quick points. The game petered out from there until the end and there endeth Shamrocks hurling championship season which was two defeats and one win overall.
Panel – C. Scriven, J. Tuohy, C. O’Neill, J. Browne, S. Andrews, B. Mulqueen, S. Collins, F. O’Neill, D. Andrews, A. Boland, T. Langton, D. Scriven, S. O’Neill, B. Sweeney, A. O’Grady, A. McCarthy, M. Hitchmough, C. Kidney, D. O’Sullivan, S. Kidney, D. O’Neill.
