Barryroe GAA

14 May, 2018

Barryroe 1-13 Na Piarsaigh 1-11

A hard-fought Cork IHC first-round tie ended with a win for Barryroe at Ovens yesterday, a result that was fully merited despite a late rally by the city outfit.

Barryroe dominated the early stages of this contest, and were rewarded with a green flag after three minutes. Goalkeeper Billy O'Donovan with a superb strike after full-forward Conor Madden was wrestled to the ground. Barryroe should have had two further goals shortly after, but Mark Crowley and Dan O'Driscoll were unable to convert from close range, the latter opportunity bringing a brilliant save from the Na Piarsaigh net minder. Following a couple of frees by Na Piarsaigh it was all square at 1-01 to 0-04 after 20 minutes. Ciaran Hurley at the top of the left causing all sorts of problems for the Na Piarsaigh rearguard and at the other side of the field Eoghan Sheehy was getting through a trojan amount of work. Barryroe finally started to find their range and rattled off four of the next five scores to leave it 1-05 to 0-05 at the short whistle.

Barryroe started the second half brightly, with two of the first three points, 1-07 to 0-06. Na Piarsaigh needed a spark and after Barryroe failed to clear their lines in front of goal, Daniel McGuire was on hand to tap the ball into the net. Barryroe responded with two swift points from Hurley and a Jack Murphy free to extend the lead back out to three points again, 1-09 to 1-06 after the third quarter. The last fifteen minutes were keenly contested but Barryroe saw it home through some fine work by Patrick Moloney who got forward for a peach of a score. Barryroe running out deserved winners 1-13 to 1-11 and can now look forward to taking their place in round 3 which will played in late July.

Overall Barryroe deserved their win but have plenty to work on before they play again later on in the Summer. They could never really put Na Piarsaigh out of their sights and coming down to the final few minutes there was only a puck of the ball dividing the sides. Barryroe shot eight first half wides, some of them were very poor efforts but management can be extremely satisfied with the character shown by the team as they always seemed to have the capacity to respond to Na Piarsaigh scores and they closed the deal with some fine scores by Moloney and Murphy. A good solid start to the 2018 championship season.

Team: B.O'Donovan 1-00p, D.McCarthy, G.O'Leary, E.Sheehy, P.Moloney 0-01, S.Holland, J.Whelton, J.O'Donovan, T.Kearney, D.O'Driscoll 0-01, D.O'Sullivan 0-02, J.Murphy 0-05 (0-04f), M.Crowley, C.Madden, C.Hurley 0-03. Subs: D.Kiely, D.Murphy 0-01, M.Whelton, J.Cahalane, A.Kiely, C.O'Regan, S.Madden, C.Tyndall, K.Lawton, C.O'Regan, A.Fleming, R.Fleming.