The Clare Champion Clare news, sport, entertainment and local notes
Clonlara 0-16 Ballyea 0-15
WHEN Ballyea goalkeeper Shane O’Neill landed his third point of the evening, in the fourth minute of injury time, it looked as if his side had secured a draw in their opening championship game of 2010 at Shannon on Sunday.
There was still some time to play and when Darach Honan won possession from the puckout, Ballyea conceded a 60m free which Donal Madden converted to give his side a one-point win, a result they just about deserved, if only for the fact that they never let Ballyea go ahead.
A five-point margin at half-time after playing with the aid of a strong wind didn’t appear a sufficient lead for Clonlara. With nine minutes remaining, they had extended this advantage to seven (0-15 to 0-8) and the champions of 2008 looked to be on their way to a comfortable win to add to the draw they secured in round one.
Ballyea never gave up and as the game entered injury time, they had cut the deficit to two. As the game entered the third minute of injury time, Tony Griffin cut the gap to the minimum when he converted his sixth free of the evening. A minute later, the teams were level after Ballyea goalie Shane O’Neill landed his third of the evening when he converted an 85m free.
It wasn’t to be, however, and Donal Madden scored his eighth free and his ninth point of the game to seal victory for the South-East Clare men, playing into the same goal he had missed from a more difficult angle in the team’s first round against St Joseph’s last month when a draw resulted.
It was clear from the outset that the strong wind would make things difficult for the teams. Ballyea went into the game without Clare minor captain Paul Flanagan who is concentrating on his Leaving Certificate. In what was their first outing in this season’s title race, they were clearly well focused on the game.
Clonlara had first use of the wind and they had four points on the board, all from Donal Madden, before Ballyea opened their account with a pointed free by Tony Griffin in the 12th minute. It was 0-6 to 0-1 in Clonlara’s favour at the end of the opening quarter but in the next 10 minutes, Ballyea served notice that it would take a big effort to defeat them as they scored three unanswered points to cut the deficit to two.
Points from John Conlon (2) and Cormac O’Donovan saw the South-East Clare side finish the half strongly to lead 0-9 to 0-5 when referee Tom Stackpool blew the short whistle.
In the early stages of the second half, points were exchanged twice but then Griffin was wide with two frees , which were to prove costly.
It was 0-11 to 0-8 in Clonlara’s favour 10 minutes into this half. In the next 10 minutes, they piled on the pressure and scored points through Madden (three frees) and Cormac O’Donovan to go seven clear with nine minutes to play. It looked to be all over for Ballyea but they had other ideas.
Three points from Griffin, one from Shane O’Neill and one from substitute James Murphy cut the margin to two as the game headed into injury time. Further points from frees by Griffin and O’Neill levelled and a share of the spoils looked the likely outcome until Madden cooly converted a 60m effort into the wind to seal victory for Clonlara.
This was a battling performance by the South-East Clare outfit who still have a way to go to get back to the form they showed in 2008 when they won the league and championship double.
Donal Madden’s contribution of nine points was critical to this victory on a day when inter-county men Nicky O’Connell, John Conlon, Darach Honan and the O’Donovan twins showed flashes of their best form. Honan was sick in the lead into this game but despite this, he made a vital contribution
Kevin Sheehan, Shane O’Neill, Niall Keane, Cathal Doohan, Gearóid O’Connell and Tony Griffin did well for Ballyea.
Clonlara: Ger O’Connell; Senan Nihill, John Moloney, Paul Collins; Nicky O’Connell, Domhnaill O’Donovan, Pat O’Hare; Tommy Lynch, Cormac O’Donovan; John Conlon, Tomas O’Donovan, William Slattery; Darach Honan, Donal Madden, Cillian Fennessy.
Subs: Brian Woods for Collins (31 minutes).
Scorers: Donal Madden (0-9, 0-8f); John Conlon (0-3); Cormac O’Donovan (0-2), Tommy Lynch, Darach Honan (0-1) each.
Frees for: 13; Wides: 9.
Bookings: Tomás O’Donovan (3 minutes); Ger O’Connell (55 minutes).
“We got through alright. We were well ahead and then we got involved in a battle of attrition. We have two months now to try and get it together. We are just hanging in there. This was a big win as we are not playing with the same fluidity as we can,” Colm Honan, manager.
Ballyea: Shane O’Neill; Eamonn Griffin, Kevin Sheehan, Brian Carigg; Niall Keane, Paddy O’Connell, Francis O’Reilly; Alan Carigg, Gearóid O’Connell; Brian Murphy, Cormac Murphy, Cathal Doohan; Donal Chambers, Tony Griffin, Gary Brennan.
Subs: Frankie Griffin for C Murphy (38 minutes), David Sheehan for E Griffin (45 minutes), James Murphy for A. Carigg (48 minutes).
Scorers: Tony Griffin (0-8, 6f); Shane O’Neill (0-3, all frees); Donal Chambers, Cathal Doohan, Gearóid O’Connell, James Murphy (0-1) each.
Frees for: 13; wides: 5.
Bookings: Alan Carigg (9 minutes), Paddy O’Connell (13 minutes); Tony Griffin (28 minutes); Frankie Griffin (60 minutes).
“We are bitterly bitterly disappointed. We had got ourselves back into it. We had one or two wides in the second half that would have put us ahead. For a game in which we never led, it’s very hard to win in the last minute. It was a soft enough free at the end but they are the breaks. It’s hard to take a lot out of it when you don’t win. It’s disappointing not to have got at least a point out of a game we should have got something out of,” Michael Hehir, Ballyea.
Referee: Tom Stackpool, Ennistymon.
Half-time lashing serves Whitegate well
OH to be a fly in the wall in the Whitegate dressing room at the interval. Players were subjected to stinging criticism from their mentors, which transformed a lacklustre first-half display into a scintillating match-winning second-half performance.
The verbal tongue-lashing certainly did the trick as Whitegate turned a two-point half time deficit into an impressive, if unlikely, 10-point victory against Smith O’Brien’s who were left shell-shocked by the dramatic turnaround in Scariff on Saturday night.
Boosted by their merited win over 2007 senior hurling champions, Tulla in the opening round, the South-East Clare men looked set for their second successive victory when they led by 0-10 to 0-4 after 23 minutes.
Dominant in most sectors of the field, they notched some impressive points from play thanks to great teamwork and support play between their backs and forwards.
This was graphically illustrated by a great point from Ian O’Halloran in the 17th minute when Seán Conway found him on the overlap with a neat pass after collecting a long delivery from the impressive Pat Vaughan, who inspired Smith O’Brien’s with some great fielding.
Paul McKeogh, Seamus Gleeson, Shane Tuohy and Willie Neary were excelling at this stage while Ian O’Halloran, Liam Walsh and John Cusack exploited gaps in the Whitegate rearguard.
The physical fitness work conducted by former Lions rugby captain Keith Wood, who encouraged players while patrolling the sideline with the rest of the Smith O’Brien’s backroom team, seemed to have reaped rich dividends in the opening quarter.
However, their failure to score at least one goal during this period of supremacy meant Whitegate weren’t left reeling from a decisive killer blow.
A stroke of good fortune three minutes before the break provided Whitegate with a crucial lifeline. Points from George Waterstone and John O’Brien cut the lead to just four points when a speculative shot from Eric Minogue came off the post and took a deflection off defender Michael Flynn into his own goal, when Smith O’Brien’s custodian Mark McInerney had left his line.
A well-taken point from Liam Walsh left Smith O’Brien’s with a slender 0-11 to 1-6 advantage at the break having dominated most of the opening 35 minutes.
Aided by the breeze, Whitegate stepped up a few gears after the change of ends. A new fire-and-brimstone approach replaced their casual hurling in the opening 20 minutes when they showed their opponents far too much respect by not seriously contesting battles for possession.
Ian Fahy and John O’Brien, in particular, began winning a lot more primary possession for the 2009 intermediate champions in midfield despite the best efforts of Willie Neary, while players like Brendan Bugler became more influential in their defence, which tightened up considerably.
Full-forward George Waterstone was on fire in the second half scoring two goals and converting a number of placed balls with ease. His first goal came in the second minute when he blasted past a hapless Mark McInerney into the corner of the net to give his colleagues the lead for the first time in the contest.
A minute earlier, again Mark McInerney had to be alert to produce a double save to stop two goal attempts but he couldn’t stop another piledriver from Waterstone from going over his head into the roof of the net six minutes later, despite getting his hurley to the shot.
Another converted Waterstone free earned Whitegate a 3-8 to 0-13 lead after Liam Walsh and Pat Ahern pointed to cancel out long-range converted frees from goalkeeper Andrew Fahy and Ian Fahy.
Smith O’Brien’s never really looked like scoring the goal they desperately needed in the last quarter to engineer a comeback. It was hard to believe they were outscored by 2-12 to 0-6 in the second period having scored almost at will in the opening half.
Having let Newmarket off the hook in their first-round defeat, Whitegate were fiercely determined not to slump to their second successive reversal and they finished the much stronger side slotting over six points on the trot compared to just three from their opponents in the final 10 minutes.
