Bathshack Senior Hurling Championship Round 3
Carey Faughs 1-13 O’Donovan Rossa 2-30
Rossa set up a quarter final meeting with Belfast rivals St John’s when they travelled to Ballyvoy on Sunday and beat Carey Faughs in Round 3 of the Bathshack Antrim Senior Hurling Championship. Both teams went into this game searching for their first win of the campaign, but Rossa were strongly fancied to beat last year’s Antrim and Ulster Intermediate champions having put in strong displays against Cushendall and Loughgiel in games one and two.
James Rocket Black gave Carey the lead inside the first minute with a sweetly struck point from a narrow angle on the left, to raise hopes among the home fans, but those hopes were quickly dashed when Rossa’s Thomas Morgan had the ball in the Carey net a few seconds later. Points followed in quick succession from Pearce Short, Declan McCartney, Gerard Walsh, Declan McEnhill, plus two more by McCartney to go 1-07 to 0-02 ahead.
Carey came back with a point from Conor McBride and when a long delivery from Conlith McKinley went all the way to the Rossa net thing began to look a bit better for the home side. Aodhan O’Brien came back with a point for Rossa but three in a row from Patrick Gillan cut the gap back to just four after 13 minutes. That was as good as it got for the home side though as Rossa began to stack up the scores and with Deaglan Murphy, Declan McCartney, Gerard Walsh and Tommy Morgan adding scores they pushed on to lead by 1-120 to 1-10 at half time.
Conditions worsened early in the second half and scores became harder to get but the Belfast men kept pressing. Gerard Walsh got their second goal when he flicked the ball over the line after a good save by goalkeeper Daniel McBride.
Substitue Eoin Trainor got in on the scoring act as Deaglan Murphy, Dominic McEnhill and Pearse Short added to their total and while Carey were outhurled in many departments James Black, Conor McBride, Shea Hunter and Patrick Gillan showed they hurl in any company.
The win for Rossa sets up a mouth-watering quarter final meeting with St John’s in two weeks’ time, with the winners of that due to face county champions Cushendall in the semi-final.
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