St. Rynagh’s 2-11 Shamrocks 2-6

[Lone Shark]

Right, I wasn't on reporting duty for this one, so ye'll just have to make do with the teams and scorers below, plus a very brief rundown since I've a load of real work to do today.

Basically I was extremely underwhelmed by Rynagh's. I'm aware of all the usual stuff about them - they get better as the year goes on, they love the knockouts, they'll put it up to better teams, but I just was not convinced at all yesterday. Shamrocks had two forwards, and though Derek Molloy was trying his heart out, he wasn't having a great day. Even still this game could very easily have gone the other way.

Roughly, Rynagh's started with two scores, Shamrocks got a goal when Butler made a woeful hames of a long ball in from Kearney (who was very impressive actually) but then Rynaghs came back with two goals of their own, one as bad as the other. The first was goalmouth scrum that Ger Scales kicked to the net, and the other was a shot from Kevin Kelly that really should have been saved. A few points were exchanged, Shane Cunningham missed a great goal chance and at 2-4 to 1-3 Gary Kelly was sent off for a stamp. Karl Mollen ended up as the extra man and he actually swept up quite well, but Rynaghs still ended up getting the next four points over twenty minutes to leave the game kinda dead. Molloy got a couple of frees, and then we had one more slightly ridiculous goal. Molloy had another free, just inside the 45. As he was taking it, Declan Tanner ran through his path on the way back, so the referee brought it forward - and by God did he go forward - right up to the 20m line more or less. The free was blocked upwards and Kearney got the flick to make it 2-8 to 2-5. Shamrocks were roused a bit and the got the next score when Nigel Dunne ran in from midfield to about 25 yards out, had left Adrian Clancy for dead but wasn't confident of using the hurl so he just dropped it onto his foot and kicked it over the bar. No chance of being hooked or anything, just preferred to kick. Split the posts too. Footballers with sticks how are ya.

Anyway on 53 minutes the game was lost - Derek fielded a high ball, rounded his man, closed in, and hit the side netting. Chance to take the lead lost, Rynaghs got a few frees to close out.

To top it all off Cathal Horan went off with what I believe was a broken finger - that was just the guess from the dressing room after the match though, I've no idea what the x-ray showed. Either way he's likely to miss two or three weeks and probably the game against Leix.

St. Rynagh’s – Ciaran Butler; Adrian Clancy, Fergus Shortt, Cathal Horan; Shane Horan, Conor Hernon, James Corrigan; Declan Tanner (0-2), Jason Whelahan; Diarmuid Horan (0-7, 0-5 frees), Pat McIntyre, Gary Kelly; Ger Scales (1-0), Nigel Woods (0-1), Kevin Kelly (1-1).
Subs: Gary Healy for Woods, Darragh Kelly for Whelahan, Stephen Clancy for Cathal Horan (inj.)

Shamrocks – Alan O’Connell; Adrian Minnock, Neville Coughlan, Karl Mollen; Mark Yeates, Thomas Coughlan, Jimmy Conway; Colin Dunne, Shane Monaghan; Brian Kearney (2-0), Trevor Darcy, Shane Cunningham; Kevin Cummins, Derek Molloy (0-5, frees) Nigel Dunne (0-1)
Sub: Aidan Kidney for Cunningham.

Referee: Tony Carroll