(FAI Junior Cup) Shannon Town A 2 – Bunratty/Cratloe 1

Shannon Town inched the derby spoils to book their place in the next round of the FAI Junior Cup but it wasn’t the greatest of advertisements for an early morning kick-off in Lynch Park in Shannon on Sunday.
Don’t get me wrong, all the ingredients were ripe for a memorable derby as a sizeable crowd was in attendance to witness a rare clash of these neighbours while there was the added layer of new Shannon Town manager Davy Hogan playing against his former Premier winning club. However, perhaps the players weren’t given sufficient notice of the 10:30am kick-off as the teams never really livened up until the final quarter.
Amazingly, there wasn’t a shot of note throughout the entire opening period and essentially it was only with Charlie Morrison’s 68th minute penalty that this prudent tie finally opened up. It was a huge relief to hosts Shannon Town who, as the Premier Division side, were expected to be able to contend with their First Division neighbours, especially off the back of an 8-0 opening league pummelling over Kilkishen Celtic eight days earlier.
Admittedly though, there were also several brows wiped in the attendance as the prospect of an additional half hour of extra-time wasn’t overly appealing. That scenario seemed even less likely eleven minutes later when a stinging TJ O’Dwyer shot was excellently kept out by goalkeeper Pierce Deloughrey, only for the attempted clearance to unwittingly rebound off onrushing substitute Ken Buckley and end up in the net at 2-0.
Game over? Well, it should have been but having seemingly turned a corner, bizarrely Shannon Town skillfully reversed back around it by coughing up an equally fortuitous goal in the 84th minute when goalkeeper Shane Russell failed to clear his lines which evergreen substitute Ali MacMillan gladly collected to centre for Johnny Okoro to finish to an empty net.
It made for a needlessly anxious finish albeit that a frustrated home side looked the more likely to get an insurance goal rather than concede another.
Indeed, former Clare football goalkeeper Deloughrey was forced to make a brace of superb saves, keeping out another O’Dwyer shot before also keeping out a point blank Cody Waller shot.
A forgettably sleepy opening period did make way for a much more positive commencement to the new half as Town’s Colin Curran beat two defenders before offloading to chief threat Charlie Morrison to unleash a curling effort that just cleared the right post.
On the hour mark, Bunratty/Cratloe winger Conor Rafferty had an effort blocked by the experienced Stevie Carroll but it was impressive centre half James Fahy’s switch to midfield that finally put some urgency into Shannon Town.
He was instrumental in teeing up Sean Aylmer for a tame attempt in the 66th minute but their breakthrough would only arrive two minutes later when Eoghan Gough played a pass down the line that was expertly flicked by TJ O’Dwyer into the path of Morrison who cut inside and was eventually brought down by Bobby O’Connell.
Morrison took the penalty himself to find the bottom right corner and it was if a weight had been lifted off the home side’s shoulders as substitutes Buckley (2) and Eoghan Maxwell all had goal sightings before the former doubled Town’s advantage.
While they videoed the tie, it’s unlikely that too many will be clambering to watch this knock-out tie again except for home manager Hogan who will undoubtedly use it as a stick to beat his side with ahead of their next home cup tie in the Munster Junior against Tulla this Sunday.

Shannon Town A: Shane Russell; Cody Waller, James Fahy, Eoghan Gough, Stevie Carroll; Luke Keating (Eoghan Maxwell, 74), Colin Curran (Derek Byrne, 64), TJ O’Dwyer, Sean Aylmer (Cian Johnston, 74); Charlie Morrison (Eoin Guinan, 83), Ben O’Neill (Ken Buckley, 64)

Bunratty/Cratloe: Pierce Deloughrey; Noel Frawley, Bobby O’Connell, Brendan O’Neill, Paul Butler (Cian O’Gorman, 54); Conor Rafferty (Jack Quinn, 80), Sohlbrahim Ouattara (Diarmuid Nash, 69 inj), Paudie Fitzgerald, Sean McInerney (Ali MacMillan, Ryan Rooney; Johnny Okoro

Referee: Mark Rellis