This article is from page 69 of the 2011-07-26 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 69 JPG
Ballyea 2-23 – Newmarket-on-Fergus 4-04 at Ballyea
A REAL statement of intent from Ballyea in humbling the defending champions and maintaining their perfect start to the championship. The home side simply had the better balance throughout and had far too much strength for an understrength Newmarket who were on the backfoot for the majority.
Still, as impressive as the 2-23 scoreline is and the fact that they had 46 shots at the posts over the hour, there is still plenty of room for improvement ahead of tougher challenges ahead. The home side hit 21 wides in total and conceded four preventable goals that might have cost them in a tighter game.
In saying that, they had more than enough fires for Newmarket to extinguish, with county minor captain Tony Kelly in unstoppable form, particularly in the second half when Newmarket tried their best to rally. There was also impressive displays from Jack Browne, Gearoid O’Connell, Joe Neylon, Martin O’Leary, Niall Deasy, Darragh Crowe and Tadgh Lynch that more than kept the Blues on their toes throughout.
However, it was the visitors who struck the first blow after only 90 seconds when a James Warren delivery was anticipated by Ryan Corry to volley to the net. It didn’t take long for Ballyea to recover from that setback however as points from Kelly and Tadgh Lynch were followed in the seventh minute by a clincial Kelly goal after receiving a handpass on the run from Niall Deasy.
It was the start of a Ballyea flurry of points that saw Kelly, Deasy and O’Leary outscore their opponents by 0-10 to 0-01 over the next 15 minutes to open up an 11 point advantage. However, just as they started the half. Newmarket finished with a Corry goal, with another Warren delivery this time evading goalkeeper Shane Harkin, leaving Corry with the simple job of flicking to an empty net at 1-13 to 2-03.
Two further goals within ten minutes of the restart through substutute Eoin Frawley and Oisin Pender cut the deficit to just four but far from panicking, Ballyea took those sucker-punches on the chin and hit back in devastating fashion with an unanswered 1-6 in the final quarter including Michael Nagle 45th minute goal.
Ballyea
Shane Harkin, Diarmuid Lorigan, Eoin Donnellan, Darragh Crowe, Jack Browne, Gearoid O’Connell, Joe Neylon, Stan Lineen,Tony Kelly (113 5f, 2’65’s),Tadgh Lynch (0-1), Niall Deasy (0-5), Martin O’Leary (0-4), Lee Brady, David Brassil, Michael Nagle (1-0)
Subs
Lee Sherlock for Lorrigan, Martin Quigley for Nagle
Newmarket- on- Fergus
Ronan McCauley, Ronan McCarthy, Evan Keogh, Jamie Cronin, Sean Quinlivan, Niall O’Connor, Paudie Conway, Shane Kelleher, Paul Gleeson, James Warren, Oisin Pender (1-0), LiamHarkin, David Burke, Frank Melody (0-4 3f), Ryan Corry (2-0)
Subs
Eoin Frawley (1-0) for Harkin, Colin Dugan for Burke, Gearoid McMahon for Melody (inj)
Man of the Match
Tony Kelly (Ballyea) Referee