Under 14’s are back to winning ways.
U14As rebound with big win in Ballyea
It was Friday the 13th but there was no bad luck involved with the trip out to Ballyea for the U14A squad in Round 5 of the Clare Marts U14A championship. Smarting from their first defeat of the year the previous week, the team produced a strong and consistent performance to get their winning mojo back once again.
The game was barely 30 seconds alive when Seanie Keane struck a fine point from the left wing. A free conceded by Ballyea from the subsequent puck out gave Tony Butler his first long range free opportunity which he duly converted. Consistent pressure from St Josephs continued and within 5 minutes, two goals from play by full forward Ethan Coughlan and another free converted by Tony Butler left Ballyea with a lot to do from early on.
Reading the game well from centre back Butler scored a fine point from play after a fine run. The quality ball into the forward line from the half backs and midfielders produced two points from corner forward Conal O’Regan and another three points from Ethan Coughlan with fifteen minutes gone in the game. After a close in free, pointed by Conal O’Regan, Ballyea began to compete a bit better.
After some competitive play, in the 17th minute, Ballyea’s Stephen Casey opened their scoring, pointing a free from the 40. He showed his shooting skills 3 minutes later, also converting from a 65.
Donal O Driscoll at centre forward scored his first point of the game from play to answer back for St Jospehs. A long range free from Tony Butler and a pointed free from Stephen Casey left the score at 2-12 to 0-3 at half-time.
The second half started better for Ballyea but a free missed by Casey resulted after a sturdy challenge by Donal O’Driscoll left him with the first yellow card of the game. However, he answered back a few minutes later with a fine goal from play. Mathew Whelan, brought on for Ethan Coughlan after 7 minutes scored a poachers goal after some strong battling by O’Driscoll. He contributed another point from play shortly after with Shane O’Halloran and Tony Butler also scoring two fine points from play before Ballyea answered back with their first point of the game from play with 14 minutes gone in the 2nd half. This seemed to spur them on and they scored a goal from play soon after.
However, within two minutes St Josephs answered back with two goals, one from O’Driscoll and one from Conal O’Regan. Ballyea scored some nice points late on in the game but the day belonged to St Joseph’s. A solid performance from the backs and clinical finishing from the forward lines put the team back at the top of the table with a strong point difference tally.
St Josephs DB: Cian Hadden, David McNicholas, Darragh O’Callaghan, Darragh Whelan, Fionn Kelleher, Tony Butler (0-5, 0-3F), Eoin Talty, Joey Keane (Capt), Shane O’Halloran (0-1), Matthew Power, Donal O’Driscoll (2-1), Seanie Keane (0-1), Conal O’Regan (1-4, 0-2F), Ethan Coughlan (2-3), Eoin Burke
Subs: Matthew Whelan (1-1) for Ethan Coughlan (37mins), Mark Hanrahan for Eoin Burke (41mins), Cillian O’Riordain for Tony Butler (45mins), Sam Cotter for Joey Keane (47mins), Darragh Nagle for Matthew Power (53mins), Cian Lahiffe, Mark Moloney
