Ballyea hold Éire Óg defence at bay

BALLYEA deservedly booked a place in the semi-final of the U-21A Hurling Championship and a meeting with Clonlara, having accounted for Éire Óg in a hard-fought tie at Corofin on Sunday.
The Ennis side have reason to rue a number of missed chances but they failed to match the all-round balance and hunger of their opponents.
The game started at a great pace with the play swinging from end to end but both sides failed to avail of good scoring chances in the opening quarter at the end of which each side had managed just one point.
The winners had to wait until nine minutes from the break before taking the lead when their top scorer, Tony Kelly, landed a 90m free and they went on to open a four-point gap by half-time when the score was 0-6 to 0-2.
The Éire Óg forward line got a good supply of ball due, in particular, to the efforts of Jack Walsh who excelled at wing-back. However, the Ballyea backline dominated throughout and when Éire Óg did get into scoring positions, their finishing was poor.
In the opening minutes of the second half, Éire Óg had a couple of bad misses and 10 minutes into this period, each side had added 0-2 to their half-time tallies.
When Tony Kelly crashed a 20m free to the net 11 minutes into the half, it left the Ennis side with a mountain to climb. Kelly quickly added a point from a 65’ leaving his side eight points clear at the three-quarter stage.
To their credit, the Ennis side fought hard in an effort to get back into contention but the winner’s defence excelled on the day and the game was in the final minute before Éire Óg got through for their goal from David Durack.
Paul Flanagan, Declan Keane and Cathal Doohan were to the fore for the winners, who were without the injured Jack Browne. Once again, Tony Kelly emerged as the team’s top scorer with 1-7 to his credit on this occasion, while James Murphy was the pick of their forward line on the day.
Jack Walsh stood out for Éire Óg and he got good support from Colin Malone and Aaron Fitzgerald but their forward line disappointed.

Ballyea: Shane Harkin; Cormac Ryan, Paul Flanagan, Declan Keane; David Sheehan, Cathal Sheehan, Gearóid O’Connell; Stan Lineen, Tony Kelly (1-7, 1-6f,  1 65’); Niall Deasy (0-1), Mark Coughlan, Brian Murphy; Martin O’Leary (0-1), James Murphy (0-1), Eoghan Donnellan.
Subs: Niall Griffin for Donnellan; Eanna McInerney for O’Leary (inj), Tadhg Lynch for Griffin(inj).
Éire Óg: Philip Walsh; Joel Hanna, Colin Malone, Mattie Melican; Jack Walsh (0-1), Aaron Fitzgerald (0-1, 65’), Aidan McGrath;  Niall McMahon, Fiachra Connellan; Liam Corry, David O’Halloran (0-1), David Durack (1-0); Shane O’Donnell (0-1), David Reidy (0-1), Graham Glynn (0-1f).
Sub: Conor Stack for Corry.
Referee: Ambrose Heagney, Corofin.