This article is from page 77 of the 2008-09-02 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 77 JPG
AVENUE served notice to all other teams in the division that they’ll be a real force to be reckoned with this term, while Corofin Harps learned in this baptism of fire that nothing will come easy in the top flight.
It was as one-sided as the scoreline suggests, with the Avenue killing this game off and collecting the three points on offer thanks to a blistering first half in which they bagged a hat- trick of goals.
And it was their deadly duo up front in the persons of Barry Nugent and Mikey Mahony who did the damage in both halves, bagging a brace of goals each to give newly promoted Corofin a very inauspicious debut in the premier division.
And, in getting off to a perfect start, Avenue, who last won the league ti- tle back in 2004, played some of the stylish football they seem to have had a patent on in Clare over the past 25 years.
Corofin on this day had no answers and were fighting a losing battle from as early as the eight minute when Ave- neue hit the front. The breakthrough goal came from a Set-piece — a corner being headed home by Barry Nugent to get Avenue off to a flier.
Nugent doubled his and Avenue’s tally by the 20th minute — his sec- ond coming at the end of beautiful move in which Avenue showed the full breath of the footballing pow- ers. It started on the left side of mid- field — the ball was then transferred infield and out to the right flank to the elusive Mikey Mahony, who gave an inch perfect centre to Nugent and
he slammed to the net. Any hope of | Brendan Rochford got on the end of
a Corofin recovery was killed off before the half-time whistle when
a cross from the right to head in at the far post. It got worse for Corofin
in the second half — this time it was Mikey Mahony, the main provider of goals in the first half, who turned
poacher.
Mahony, who was top scorer in last year’s league bagged his side’s fourth in the 62nd minute, while he rounded off his morning’s work six minutes from time when he showed a clear pair of heels to the Corofin defence and then slotted the ball home from ten yards.
Corofin’s only cheer came when Gavin Dinan finally pierced the stonewall Avenue defence to score what was a mere consolation goal 20 minutes into the half. That brought the game back to 4-1, but a couple of missed after Dinan’s strike ended the slim hopes they had of a miraculous recovery.
Then enter the game’s marquee players Mikey Mahoney to put four between them at the end.