Clare 6 West Cork 2

Oscar Traynor title holders Clare have made winning start in defence of the title when they overcame West Cork at Frank Healy park this Saturday evening.

The home side got off to a great start and were three goals to the good by the fourteenth minute which left the visitors with a huge task on their hands

Irish junior international Eoin Hayes opened the scoring after just four minutes an dhe doubled the home side’s advantage in the eleventh minute after he was put through by Eoin Hayes.

Hayes then turned provided as his break created the opening which saw Gary O’Connell score the home side’s third

Twenty minutes later Hayes was involved again as he created the opportunity which led to Dave McCarthy finding the net.

West Cork, to their credit, didn’t drop their heads and they hit back two minutes after McCarthy’s strike for a John Kelly goal and this left the score at 4-1 which was the position at half time.

Clare returned with Yarik Mamala and Simon Cuddy in their line up in place of Barry Ryan and Eoin O’Brien and ten minutes into the half they made further changes when bringing in Colin Scanlan and Mark Roche.

Scanlan signalled his arrival when he scored in the eighteenth minute of the half. Again the visitors responded and Sean Crowley finished off a good move to make it 5-2 but a dominant Clare side had the final say and debutant Ciaran Monahan scored with four minutes remaining.

Clare; Barry Ryan (Avenue United); Stephen Carroll (Shannon Town), Dylan Casey (Avenue United); Eoin O’Brien (Newmarket Celtic), Stephen Kelly (Newmarket Celtic) captain; Gary O’Connell (Shannon Town), Colin Smyth (Newmarket Celtic|), Colin Ryan (Newmarket Celtic), Eoin Hayes (Newmarket Celtic) Dave McCarthy (Newmarket Celtic) Ian Collins (Newmarket Celtic)

Subs; Yarak Mamala (Coole FC) for B. Ryan; Simon Cuddy (Avenue United) for O’Brien; Colin Scanlan (Shannon Town) for Hayes; Mark Roche (Avenue United) for O’Connell; Ciaran Monahan (Sporting Ennistymon) for McCarthy

By Seamus Hayes