O’Neill’s All County Hurling League – Division 4

Michael Davitts 2.09     Conn Magees Glenravel 1.21

For a good part of the first half of this league game at Woodlands Glenravel looked anything but winners as they trailed by two points with 20 minutes played. However despite losing influential midfielder Paddy O’Neill to injury, the Con Magees reshuffled their defence, made a few positional switches elsewhere and ran out comfortable winners in the end.

Declan Traynor and Padge O’Neill got Glenravel going at the start of the first half with two long range points from play, before Davitt’s pulled one back from a free. Kieran McIntyre then hit a good score and O’Neill got another point after latching on to a long pass out of defence from Cormac Scullion. However the early dominance was soon cancelled out when Davitts hit 2 goals and a point in a dominant 5 minute spell to put shockwaves through the Glenravel defence.

Neil ‘Vic’ McCann steadied things up with three points from frees and James Duffin fielded a high ball straight from the puck out, turned and pointed from half way to put a better look on the score line, before further points from Abram, O’Neill, and another from James Duffin gave them an 0-11 to 2-3 lead at the break.

The second half saw a few changes for the visitors with Shanlee Kerr and Cormac Scullion switching positions, Kerr returning to his usual fullback position, while Damien O’Hagan and Shane Woulahan were brought on in place of Caolan Mullan and Sean McElroy. The two sides traded points at the start of the half before Glenravel were dealt a heavy blow with the loss of Paddy O’Neill to a leg injury, and was replaced with Archie Rae Junior.

Both teams continued with points apiece, Glenravel’s coming via Declan Traynor after a good solo run. From the resulting puck out Odhran McAleenan made a brilliant interception to leave a simple score for himself from 20 yards. Shortly after a long ball into our forward line broke to Neill McCann who reacted well and drilled the ball to the Davitts net to put Glenravel 3 points up. Glenravel kept the momentum up with a long accurate clearance from Turbo O’Hagan finding Vic, who slipped the ball hockey style over to James Duffin who neatly slotted over. Kieran McIntyre and Neill McCann hit further points to push Glenravel further in front, but when a defensive error let  Davitts through on goal Ronan Donnelly was forced to make an outstanding save to keep Glenravel in control of the game.

Glenravel were dealt a bad blow when they lost Shane Woulahan with a bad arm injury  but they pushed ahead regardless when Declan Abram collected the ball wide on the wing soloed up field and hit a great point on the run. Two points from frees via Neill McCann followed and James Duffin finished off the game with a long range point to leave Glenravel winners by eight points.

The astro-turf surface made this a fast flowing game with plenty of scores. Despite a few mistakes the defence coped well with the opposing forwards, with Eoin McCusker clearing ball time-and-time again throughout the match. The midfield and forward line were well on top, as once again our score line was made up from a wide range of players.

Team: R Donnelly, E McCusker, C Scullion, C Mullan, S Atcheson, M Scullion, S Kerr, P O’Neill, M McDonnell, K McIntyre, N McCann, J Duffin, D Traynor, S McIlroy, O McAleenan

Subs: S Woulahan for S McIlroy, D O’Hagan for C Mullan, A Rae Jnr for P O’Neill