JP Corry Antrim Under 21 Hurling Championship
St John’s 9-22 Glenaravel 0-15
St John’s scored a runaway victory over Glenravel in Wednesday evening’s preliminary round of the JP Corry Under 21 B Hurling Championship at Corrigan Park. The Belfast side had an eye for goal, hitting seven of them in a devastating first half which saw the raise the green flag seven times. The Glenravel side, in their first ever venture in Under 21 Hurling, were able to stay with the home side as far as points were concerned but the Johnnies goal scoring ability set the a class apart
The first goal of the game came inside two minutes as Lewis Rafferty rounded his man and finished low to the net.
In the next attack it was a copy-cat of the first goal as Rafferty rounded his man again and blasted to the rigging and not long after corner forward Tomas Adams added the Johnnies third as he collected a long delivery and finished to the corner of the net.
Brilliant link up play between Adams and Lewis Rafferty saw the latter grab his hat-trick after 15 minutes with a finish to the top Corner.
Caolan Wilsons solo run split the Glenravel defence as he slipped the ball to Adams who flicked it over the goalkeepers head for his second goal
Tomas Adams then went for his own hat-trick but was denied by a brilliant save by Niall Hynds in the Glenravel goal. However Rafferty was alert to the rebound to tap in from close range for his 4th goal in 20 minutes.
Just before half time Wilson collected a puc-out before going on solo run before finding full-forward Conan McKinney who broke through the Glenravel back line and low to the corner of the net for which helped the home team to an unassailable 7-09 to 0-09 half time lead.
After the change of ends the scores kept flowing and the final major came after Caolan Wilson was pulled down in the box and the centre forward stepped up to riffle the resultant penalty home.
The win sets up a west Belfast derby for the Johnnies who now travel to Shaw’s Road for a quarter final clash with St Paul’s next Wednesday evening.
St John’s scorers
Lewis Rafferty 4-1 Tomas Adams 2-7 Caolan Wilson 2-5 Conin McKinney 1-0 Fintan McKinney 0-3 James Wilson 0-3 Alex Robb 0-1 Dave King 0-1
Naomh Eoin CLG
- 1 – Eoghan Miliar
- 2 – Fionntan McElroy
- 3 – Michael Darragh
- 4 – Caolan McCallin
- 5 – Odhran Quinn
- 6 – Lorcan McCallin
- 7 – James Wilson
- 8 – Alex Robb
- 9 – Fintan Mc Kinney
- 10 – Daire King
- 11 – Caolan Wilson
- 12 – Corey Darragh
- 13 – Lewis Rafferty
- 14 – Conin McKinney
- 15 – Tomas Adams
- 16 – Jack Cunningham
- 17 – Josh Robb
- 18 – Ollie Gregory
- 20 – Daniel mckenna
- 21 – Daniel Mervyn
Conn Mag Aoidh
- 1 – Niall Hynds
- 2 – Patrick Irvine
- 3 – Niall Dickson
- 4 – Conrad McIlhatton
- 5 – Conor Kerr
- 6 – Ronan McCormick
- 7 – Oisin McKeown
- 8 – Fergus Donaghy
- 9 – Conor Duffin
- 10 – Connor Laverty
- 11 – Cormac McKeown
- 12 – Dara Higgins
- 13 – Daniel Butler
- 14 – Fionntan Hodgson
- 15 – Matthew Carry
- 18 – Sean og Oneill
- 19 – Kaiden Gallagher
- 20 – Shea Mcauley
Referee – Chris Brown