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Rock Win Clash Of Favourites
Sunday 01.09.2019
Two of the favourites for the LCC Junior Championship met on Saturday afternoon for a place in the quarter finals. The fixture drew a large crowd to Killeeshil and those who attended certainly went home with plenty to talk about.
Rock emerged 1-11 to 1-08 winners after a game that Aghaloo will look back on and ask themselves how did it all unravel for them.
Aghaloo played with the breeze in the first half and with Niall Henderson, Niall Mc Elroy and Ruairi Mc Glone moving well they caused plenty of problems for Rock.
Aidan Mc Garrity signalled his team’s intent however when he opened the scoring with a fine score five minutes in. Aghaloo responded with points from Mc Elroy and Tiernan Donnelly before the elusive corner forward found the net to put his team 1-2 to 0-1 ahead.
Aghaloo seemed to be going through the gears but it was Rock who finished the stronger and the men in green hit three unanswered points from Liam Nugent, Shane Murphy and Aidan Mc Garrity to leave the score at the break 1-2 to 0-4 in favour of Aghaloo.
Few if any among the crowd or on the pitch expected the second half to evolve like it did. The first half had been very competitive but fair and hard. The second half became disjointed and finished up with Aghaloo being reduced to eleven players and Rock to fourteen.
Aghaloo were on top in terms of possession and early points from Ruairi Mc Glone and Niall Henderson extended their lead to three. Rock were struggling to create chances but a brace of scores from Liam Nugent narrowed the gap to one. Midway through the second half Aghaloo responded with a further brace of points from the boot of Niall Mc Elroy.
It was just after that second point that things began to go wrong for the men in red and black. With sixteen second half minutes left and leading by two Aghaloo’s Tiernan Donnelly was red carded. Two minutes later team mate Conor Mullen followed him before Rock corner back Peter Ward received a second yellow.
In spite of this numerical disadvantage Aghaloo still looked the side most likely and when Niall Mc Elroy extended the lead to three with nine minutes left it looked like they would see this one out.
Rock threw on several subs including Diarmaid Carroll and points from the former county minor and Nugent gave Rock renewed hope.
Then came the moment of the match when Mc Elroy chased a long ball into the corner, skipped past the keeper and struck for goal. A fantastic diving block from wing back Cormac O’Neill denied Aghaloo a certain goal and the match.
The resultant 45 was missed before a Conor Mc Garrity score tied the game with four minutes on the clock. Aidan Mc Garrity pointed to level the game before Aghaloo were reduced to twelve when Ruairi Mc Glone was ordered off.
The game became very heated as both sides fought for supremacy but it was Rock who prevailed when match winner Nugent skipped past the Aghaloo defence to hit the net. With the clock running down there was still time for a further red card as Aghaloo goalkeeper Stephen Donnelly was also dismissed from the field.
Final score : Rock 1-11, Aghaloo 1-08
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