Antrim Junior Hurling Championship – semi-final
Glen Rovers 4-13 Davitt’s 1-17
Last year’s beaten finalists, Glen Rovers Armoy, qualified for this years’ decider when they beat Davitt’s in a well contested semi-final in Armoy on Saturday.
The Armoy men were certainly made to work hard for their victory for though they ended up with a five point win, Davitt’s actually had more scores than their opponents and they can be thankful to the score snatching ability of full forward Trevor Linton who ended up with 2-6 to his name, a few of them right out of the top drawer.
The stocky full forward grabbed a goal in each half, his cuteness on the edge of the ‘square’ causing the Davitt’s defence no end of problems. Davitt’s too had their stars, and in wing forwards Marcas Toner and Don Wheelan they had two highly skilful hurlers who could mix it in any company. Whelan grabbed his team’s goal in the second half and Toner was denied on a couple of occasions by excellent saves by the Armoy goalkeeper Conor Devlin.
A goal in the ninth minute by Armoy centre forward Colin Lordan and another five minutes later from Thomas Burns put the north Antrim men in charge, but Davitt’s kept plugging away and two points apiece by Toner and Don Wheelan kept them in touch. However Linton’s goal in first half injury time was a bad blow to the visitors and at the break they were 3-4 to 0-8 in arrears.
Davitt’s closed the gap early in the second half when two points from Stephen McGivern and one from Don Wheelan replied to two by Thomas Burns, but a bit of ididivual brilliance from Linton on 49 minutes saw him grab his team’s fourth goal. Both team scored freely during the next twenty minutes, Linton flicking two over the goalkeepers head, but also over the crossbar, and PJ McBride, Emmet O’Hara and Linton again chipped in with one from a free. Davitt kept working to the end though and points from Toner, Whelan and McGivern hit points before Whelan grabbed an injury time goal.
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