O’Neill’s All County Hurling League Div 4

St Teresa’s GAC    0.18    Con Magees    2.07

By Fergus Miskelly

Glenravel hurlers’ hopes for promotion were dealt a serious blow this evening in Belfast when they lost out to St Teresa’s in Belfast.

St Teresa started brightly hitting 5 points without reply before Neil McCann opened the Con Magees account with a pointed free on 7 minutes. Shortly after Micky McDonnell won the ball in the top right corner, beat his man, and slotted over a point from a tight angle. A pointed free from McCann followed before a long puck-out from Ronan Donnelly landed in the full forward line, where again McCann was first to react hitting a good point from play.

St Teresa’s hit another 3 points before half time and Glenravel scored 2 more from frees, one of note from Paddy O’Neill from beyond half way to leave St Teresa’s 8 points to 6 up at half time.

At the restart Neil Mccann and Caolan McIntyre were taken off to make way for Damien O’Hagan and Connor McKeown, however Connor was replaced due to injury by Odhran McAleenan after only 3 minutes action. Glenravel made a dreadful start to the second half, failing to score until the 47th minute from Declan Traynor, by which stage the Glen road side had built up a 15 to 7 point lead. Throughout this period only James Duffin in the forward line looked interested in getting on the ball, while Ronan Donnelly in goals and Sean Burns in defence did not put a foot wrong for the entire hour, clearing ball after ball.
With 8 minutes left Conleth O’Loan picked up the ball 40 yards out before soloing through and finishing to the roof of the net to give the visitors renewed hope. However Glenravel failed to build on this goal and the Belfast side tagged over a further 3 points to put the game beyond doubt. With only minutes remaining Paddy O’Neill hit another goal after a goal-mouth scramble, but it was too little too late, and St Teresa’s ran out 5 point winners.

Team: R Donnelly, S Burns, B O’Neill, C Mullan, S Atcheson, O McCusker, D McBride, P O’Neill, D Traynor, K McIntyre, S McIlroy, J Duffin, C O’Loan, N McCann, M McDonnell