All County Hurling League Division 3&4

KICKHAMS 6- 16 CUSHENDUN 2-21

Most observers would have picked Creggan,for this encounter, judging by Robert Emmets league performance ,but with Creggan missing two of their forward line Conor McCann and Conor Small, the odds narrowed. The South West side were first to raise the flag and went three up before Emmets, found their feet with a long range point from play, followed by another from the Creggan puck-out, this too from well into their own half.

Creggan response came from Kevin Rice, catching the puck out at mid field and charging past the Emmets back line before pulling the trigger and blasting the ball to the Cushendun net. With 10 minutes gone Creggan lead 1-03 to 0-02 but for the next 20 minutes Cushendun bagged 11 points from play without troubling the Creggan back line as the balls sailed over from distance. As Creggan’s goal scoring duo of McCann and Small watched from the line it was left to Thomas McCann, Kevin Rice and Peter Graham to step up and rattle five past the Emmets keeper to get them back in control as the opened up a 5-5 to 0-13 half time lead.

The second half got under way seeing the South West lads increase their lead to 7 and then to 8 points but Emmets hit back and this time moved the game up to Creggans back line going deeper in search of scores and Creggan ‘keeer Brendan Prenter began was called upon to make several vital saves. However despite his heroics the visitors make the breakthrough twice to keep themselves in touch.  Creggan got their final goal from Kevin Small and two points each from, Teddy McKeown and Odhran McCann to seal the victory and move themselves up to fourth place in the league table. It has to be said that despite their defeat Emmets performed admirably. Follow defeat to Gort na Mona in the championship at the weekend It would have been easy for them to throw in the towel but they gave it their best and can take a little consolation out of the fact that they hit 24 scorers to Creggan’ s 23.