St. Patricks GAA

St. Patricks 3-13 Ballooby-Castlegrace 3-09

Last Sunday was a good day for the our club, the silverware which has been sought after since 2005 returned to Drangan and Cloneen. Five years since the last South title, so the victory was very well received in the parish.

Since the last title, there has been a changing of the guard with respect to the the people wearing the jerseys. There was possibly only two players who started in the 2005 final playing last Sunday, namely Sean Horan and Brian McCormack. Yes this is a very young outfit, which is very encouraging. The starting fifteen last Sunday had eight of this years UI21 team with another one coming on as a sub.

Monroe was looking really well for the event, it isn’t often you see the sliothar hoping off the ground in October. This in itself suited the youthful St. Pats side. Ballooby also looked to be a young group(speculation on my behalf) so it promised to be a good open game of hurling.

The game started well for St,.Pats with them running into a 3 points to zero lead. Brian McCormack was winning ball at full forward and laying off to incoming forwards resulting in some good scores. Ballooby eventually settled and got on the scoreboard. As the half wore on, Ballooby upped the pace and took the lead. Their inside forward line started to reap dividends as their half forwards dragged the Pats half backs out the field creating space inside. At this stage Pats were struggling to get scores on the board even though they had their chances. Eventually Brian McCormack got an opportunist goal for our lads which kept them in touch and we went in a point in arrears. At this stage Shane Gorey was Pats best player at midfield, he had moved an amount of ball.

The second half started with a Ballooby point and they seemed to take control for the first 10 minutes. We struggled to get the ball up to our forwards and they went approx 3 or 4 points ahead. Our backs at this stage were under a lot of pressure but thankfully stood up to the task. Eventually the ball went up the field and Tony O’Brien latched onto it and whipped in a good goal. This was the tonic that was needed. Tony added a few points from frees and we were back in it. Within the last ten minutes, Brian McCormack got his second green flag of the day and aided with some very good Tony O’Brien frees Pats went four up. It was backs to the wall for the remaining time. There was a few scary moments in front of our own goalmouth but thanks to resolute defending we held out to claim the  silverware.

In the second half, Eoin McCormack had got to terms with the Ballooby full forward who had tormented him in the early periods of the game and Eoin defended very well in the closing period. Paul Horan also got through a good deal of work and midfield and wing back. Up front it was Tony O’Brien who excelled at the frees and the experience of Brian McCormack which kept Pats in touch at key moments. All in all, there was great effort from all our lads and a deserved victory in the end.

From what has been said its Kilruane McDonaghs next week in the County quarter final, venue to be decided. Lets hope our lads refocus and go after the big prize, a county title!!

Team; J.Moroney, K.Clancy, E.McCormack, P.Moroney, J.Hayes, L.Brett, R.Needham, S.Gorey, P.Horan, S.Horan, C.Barry, W.McCormack, T.O’Brien,  B.McCormack, N.Gleeson. Subs; R.MCormack, R.Maher, T.O’Connor, S.Broderick, E.Needham, PJ.Burke, D.Ryan, M.OConnell, C.Dunne, M.O’Brien, D.Molloy. T. Hayes

Some extra photos on our flickr stream!

This entry was posted on October 18, 2010 at 8:56 am and is filed under Hurling. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.