For the second time in a week, our Junior team’s league game ended up in a draw. Following Monday’s draw for the hurlers, it was the turn of the footballers to share the spoils in their game away to Whitechurch. Though it was a bright day in general last Saturday, by time the ball was thrown in at 19:00 in the evening, the very stiff breeze blowing down the field made for very chilly evening.
Whitechurch played with the advantage of the breeze in the opening half hour. In the opening ten minutes, they made the advantage count and went three points up. Dylan Burke, who had the post with an earlier attempt, got the first score for White’s Cross in the 10th minute. Harry Coughlan added another one a minute later and there was only a point between the sides. The home side got the next, and only, two scores between the 10th and 25th minute. They had a number of other opportunities but, shooting under pressure, all went wide. Conor Docherty got a glut of scores in the 25th and 26th minutes. Three points in total. One of these was a 50 metre free because of talking on the line from the Whitechurch dug-out. Referee Trevor Lyons, correctly, took a zero-tolerance approach on this new rule with both teams having to give up scores because of too much unnecessary talking from non-playing members of squads. Both teams will hopefully learn from this going forward.
In the 28th minute points from Dylan Burke and Daniel Kelleher out White’s Cross into a 0-07 to 0-06 lead. A superb two-pointer from Mark Calnan put Whitechurch back into the lead on the stroke of half-time. However, White’s Cross, having played against the wind would have been very happy with how the half went.
That said, the wind does not win any game. You have to make it happen. Unfortunately, in the opening ten minutes of the second half, Whitechurch did all the running; and scoring. They added 1-03 without reply. In the 11th and 13th minutes, things began to unravel a little bit for Whitechurch. They had two payers sent off. Conor Docherty added a free shortly after but this was cancelled out in the 15th minute by a Mark Calnan free for Whitechurch (who now lead 1-11 to 0-08). White’s Cross initially took advantage of the extra bodies and got three quick points from goalkeeper Rory Teehan, substitute Ronan Healy and Dylan Burke in 18th and 19th minutes. This left a goal in it (1-11 to 0-11). There was a stalemate for the next 10 minutes as the 13 men looked like they were hanging on; or, to their credit, even extending their lead. White’s Cross did show enough character though and two point frees from Harry Coughlan and Conor Dochery and mighty equalizing score from Max Philpott. I am not sure either team will be happy with the draw but this is how it worked out.
Team
1 – Rory Teehan (0-01, ‘45’)
2 – Senan Ryan
3 – Gearoid Fleming
4 – Max Philpott (0-01)
5 – Aidan Docherty
6 – Killian Ryan
7 – Seamus Quinlan
8 – Barry Prendergast
9 – PJ O’Donovan
10 – Dylan Burke (0-03)
11 – Harry Coughlan (0-02, 1 free)
12 – Fiachra O’Connell
13 – Daniel Kelleher (0-01)
14 – Conor Docherty (0-05, 4 frees)
15 – Patrick Harrington
SUBS:
off: Patrick Harrington on: Ronan Healy (0-01)
off: Fiachra O’Connell on: Bobby O’Riordan
off: Seamus Quinlan on: Luke Mullins
off: Daniel Kelleher on: Michael Mullins