Casement Social Club Junior Hurling Championship

Glenravel 0-23    Ardoyne 1-10

Fifty years ago in 1975 these two Clubs met in the Antrim Junior Hurling Championship decider in Glenariffe with the  men in green and white the eventual winners in what was to be their first County Championship win. On Saturday evening, just along the coast in Glenarm, Glenravel again secured victory against the north Belfast men, but they had to work very hard on this occasion to secure the win. A strong wind blew straight down Pairc Ui fhearsithe towards the road end of a ground named after famed Antrim Gael Arthur Forsythe rendering this a game of two halves with the eventual winner being the team who maximised the conditions better. That would prove to be Con Magees Glenravel but trailing on the scoreboard by seven points with twenty minutes played even their most ardent supporters must have wondered about the decision to play into a strong breeze when offered the decision after winning the toss. In the end a ten point victory masked the challenge they faced in that opening period but in truth the better team over the hour prevailed.

The opening twenty minutes of this game was marked by fundamental mistakes from Glenravel being punished by a slick operation from the City men with Patrick McGreevy chief protagonist. McGreevy was unerring from placed balls and ably assisted by Matt McKillen, Cormac Barnes and Paul McGuigan the men in black and white had opened a seven point gap on their opponents and looked good value for that lead. But Glenravel took control in the closing ten minutes to reduce that gap to three points with Sean McKay, Conleth O’Loan and Cormac McKeown starting to find some space inside the Ardoyne back line. Those four points brought us to the half time break with Glenravel trailing by three and it could certainly be argued that the game was won and lost with those scorers as Con Magees would have gone in with their tails up when in reality they had been dominated across the thirty minutes spell.

The second half proved to be total domination from Glenravel as their opponents dropped one or two sweepers into defence to try to and swell the onslaught leaving no room for adventure up front. When the final whistle blew Ardoyne had only managed three points in thirty minutes but Glenravel putting sixteen points over in the same period to secure a second victory in this round robin championship group.

Ardoyne now face a tricky assignment away to St Brigid’s in the final round robin game whilst Glenravel will travel to Davitts in their next outing.

TO SEE MORE OF BRIAN McKEE’S PICS FROM THIS GAME CLICK ON THE LINK BELOW

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