East Cork Junior Football League Div 1
22nd Feb – Cloyne
Carraig na bhFear 0-09 Cloyne 1-03
A threadbare Junior A football squad made the journey to Cloyne on Sunday to take on the home team in their fantastic new clubhouse and pitch on Sunday last. It was a winning trip too, with Carraig taking control after a shaky opening and holding onto the lead until the final whistle. Cloyne were first on the scoreboard when the evergreen Diarmuid O’Sullivan shot over a lovely point off his left boot. Tellingly, that was to be the hosts only score from play over the hour, with the Carraig defence coming to grips with the Cloyne forwards. Stephen Caseys return at full back was a welcome sight to the Carraig support and he put in a great shift over the hour. Paul Geaney and Tyrone Kennedy were solid along side him. Barrie Casey and Paul Murphy had Carraigs opening points to put us ahead after 15 minutes. Barrie had to withdraw through injury shortly after this but further points from Colm OReilly and Paul Murphy extended our lead before we were dealt another blow with Nicky Pike receiving a black card five minutes before the break but we took a 0-04 to 0-01 lead to the short whistle, albeit it with the bench now emptied.
The second half saw Carraig continue to make the running. Timmy Geaney was excellent at centre back while the hard work of Sean O’Sullivan and Paul O’Keeffe around the middle saw us extend our lead to 0-07 to 0-02 after 45 minutes. Some excellent team work kept the Cloyne attack at bay. Another blow followed with 10 minutes to go when Martin Hickey saw black, meaning we were now down to 14 players.
However, after a great team attack Paul Murphy placed Tyrone Kennedy through and he was unceremoniously chopped down resulting in a second yellow card for the Cloyne defender and 14 men a side. A point from Colm from the resulting free was cancelled out by a Cloyne free shortly afterwards. The home side pressed hard to get back into the game and were rewarded with a penalty, duly dispatched to leave just two between the sides with under 5 minutes remaining. Carraig responded well and a great relieving run from Sean O’Sullivan resulted in another free which Colm converted to extend our lead to 3 points with time running out. Cloyne came in search of the equalising goal but could not breach the Carraig rearguard in the closing moments. Full time score Carraig 0-09 Cloyne 1-03. A good result, with the U21s to return and a number of older players unavailable on Sunday, a deeper pool of options should be available to the selectors in the coming weeks.
Team:
Ricky Galvin
Paul Geaney, Stephen Casey, Tyrone Kennedy;
Tom Neally, Timmy Geaney, Padraig O’Sullivan;
William Spillane, Paul O’Keeffe;
Sean O’Sullivan, Barrie Casey, Aaron Dorgan;
Paul Murphy, Colm O’Reilly, Nicky Pike;
Subs:
Martin Hickey for Barrie Casey, Tomás Sheehan for Nicky Pike (black card)