Intermediate Hurling Championship – Round 5
Cloney Gaels 0-32 Sarsfields 0-19
Cloney Gaels produced a master class of score taking in beating Sarsfields in Saturday’s final round-robin game in the Intermediate Hurling Championship at Ahoghill. 32 points is impressive any day, but against a team like Sarsfields is even more so, the Paddies normally tight in defence were hampered when they lost a man to a red card nearing the end of the first half, but they still managed 19 points themselves, which would win a lot of games.
The Cloney men had five points on the board in the first five minutes, two of them from James O’Connell and one each from Danny O’Neill, Owen Neeson and Conor Crossey.
Sarsfields got on the board with a Fionn Jemfrey point on six minutes and they added two more through Jemfrey and Donal McKernan to get back in the game. With just five minutes left in the first half the visitors had closed to within two points (0-11 to 0-09), four of them from Kevin ‘Kevo’ McKernan and two from Niall McKenna, but Cloney finished the game strongly and two from Fionnbar O’Neill and one each from Diarmuid Grahan and James O’Connell put them 0-15 to 0-09 ahead at the break.
The six point gap was out to eight when Cloney got the first two points of the second half , but the Paddies got four of the next five scores, Kevo nailing three of them and Fionn Jemfrey the other one to close to within five. However the Ahoghill men were relentless as they hit nine of the next ten points to put the game beyond their opponents. To their credit Sarfields never gave up the fight and they kept going to the end, hitting the last three points of the game Jemfrey getting two and Niall McKenna one.
A great way for Cloney Gaels to bounce back after their defeat to neighbours Tir na Nóg last time out. They now face Carey Faughs in the semi-final while Tir na nÓg take on the Oisins. With the two Senior semi-finals as well, plus the Junior and Junior B deciders, it should be a great weekend’s hurling
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