White’s Cross Junior A footballers turned up at Ballinlough on April 22nd for the first round of their 2005 Championship, buoyed on by recent league results. However 30 minutes before this clash with Passage, referee Denis Linehan reported the pitch unplayable after a thorough inspection. Thus this team had to pack their gear-bags up and all attention instead turned to our second team who were playing Ballinure the following Sunday morning.
This game did go ahead at the immaculate Rathpeacon grounds and proved to be a splendid game of football and far surpassing the Junior B grade it was. It was nip-and-tuck from the off with Ballinure out of the traps quicker to peg on the first point after four minutes. Colm Sheahan equalised on seven with a free and Ballinure responded with another minor after nine. However, the game exploded to life four minutes later when Ballinure struck for the first of two goals. In between the two goals White’s Cross remained in contention with points from the bronzed Colin Lawless (recently returned from Honeymoon) and Sheahan again. The second goal was a real sucker-punch but the damage could have been far-worse was it not for an excellent save from custodian Aidan Harte, to deny Ballinure a third, who somehow got a hand to a blistering effort from the Ballinure full-forward. From the resulting play wing-back William Casey combined with midfielder Con Kelleher, to score the point of the game from 45 metres out, reducing the half-time deficit to two points
At half-time selectors John Mulcahy and Conor Kelleher were quick to remind their charges that they had found themselves in a similar position in the league clash earlier in the year, trailing on that occasion by two at the short whistle also and losing out in the end by a whopping 16 point margin. However the White’s Cross lads realised that championship football is a very different game. On the second half resumption centre-back Paul Finnegan really took a stranglehold of this clash, combining with Martin Kelleher to win all the in-the-air duels for the Cross and further scores from Lawless and Sheahan helped us lead for the first time after 42 minutes.
However the Ballinure lads re-gathered and fought back gallantly to peg on two points. White’s Cross introduced Edwin Buckley and he added fresh legs to the front men. He almost scored a goal with his first attack but the Nure keeper save well. Sheahan pointed with precision from the resulting 45 to make it all square once more.
White’s Cross then introduced veterans John Hegarty and Philip O Connell, and these old heads both made a telling difference. O Connell linked up with Buckley to score the last two White’s Cross points and help us lead by two. Now the Nure boys needed a goal but with captain Rob O Brien marshalling the small square and ably assisted by Sean Gorman and Padraig Murnane, they could not test Harte again. There was much jubilation on the final whistle as we won out 0-15 to 2-7. We await the winners of the Passage and Na Piarsiagh clash for our next round opposition.
The Junior A clash with Passage has been re-fixed but the result is not known at the time of going to print. The winners progress to Round Three while the losers will play Rathpeacon in the Second Round ‘Back-door’ clash.