COOLDERRY AND KK VICTORIOUS

[black and red exile]

As expected hot favoutites KK and Coolderry got through this double header in Banagher with considerable ease. In the first game and after an opening half scare where Skenagh went in 2 points up 3.3 to 1.7, kk upped the tempo big time at the start of the second half and turned it into a turkey shoot to romp home 4.20 yo 3.3 with skenagh not raising one flag in the second half . Ciaran Slevin was the star of the show hitting 2.9, 2.6 from play and 3 points from placed balls, Peter Healion was also very impressive at centre forward scoring 3 points from play and caused endless problems for the Skenagh backs with his strenght and direct running, especially in the second half when the floodgates opened after the second goal went in. In the first half thanks to some comical schoolboy errors by the KK full back line Skenagh found themselves hitting the net 3 times, 2 goals from corner forward John Dooley in the space of 2 minutes, and half forward Tadgh Maher, but you could sense at half time that if KK got their act together and got a run on the 2003 county finalists then there was only going to be one winner as which turned out to be exactly the case. KKs other 2 goal scorers were Daniel Currams at no 15 and full forward David Gleeson.for Skenagh, Brendan Murphy certainly gave everything he got and put over a couple of points, Alan Franks could not be faulted between the sticks for any of the goals but you would just have to feel for a club with such a small pick and losing the likes of David and Eoghan Franks as well as Mick O Hara is way to big a handicap to try an overcome and to be quite honest it will be a miracle if they don't get relegated after a few more hidings to come in the coming months.
Just one last comment about Skenagh, it was pretty obvious that by looking at how overweight and unfit a number of their players were last night, it seems that commitment and numbers turning up at training are pretty poor which is a great shame.
In the second game I was hoping that Tullamore just might cause Coolderry some problems seeing that the 2004 county champions are usually quite slow to take off early in the year, but alas it was not the case and by half time with the score at 1.8 to 4 points the writing was on the wall. The blues did stir themselves in the second half and in fairness did'nt lie down and die, and with about 10 minutes to go missed 2 glorious goal chances which would have made Coolderry sweat a little for the last few minutes, but then again the beaten finalists of the last 2 years always seemed to have an extra gear if it was needed. For Coolderry Kevin and Joe Brady were very solid in the half back line, Barry Teehan was magnificent at midfield even though he did seem to tire a little in the second half, Martin Corcoran and Cathal Parlon were the more effective of the six forwards and I stand to be corrected but I think Parlon hit 1.3 from play and Im nearly sure Corcoran scored 3 points from play also. Brian Carroll despite scoring a couple of points was strangely off colour and certainly had better games in the green jersey.
For Tullamore that old warhorse Nigel Mannion at centre back tried to put a bush in every gap despite Martin Corcoran at centre forward for the winners raising a few white flags, Mannion showed great leadership and made sure that his teamates did'nt drop their heads when fighting a losing battle. Shane Kelly at no 12 scored 3 nice points from play and was definetly the most threatening of the blues forwards. Shane Dooley started at full forward and was not in the game in the first 20 minutes mainly due to some dreadful little or no service from his out played midfield and was moved out to centre forward but got very little change from the impressive and powerful Joe Brady which in the second half meant him going back to the edge of the square which resulted in him having a very frustrating evening. The final score was Coolderry 1.13 to Tullamore 8 points.
It certainly looks like, reading the LS reports on the other games that its going to be either of the big two Birr and Coolderry who will again be celebrating next October with KK and St Rynaghs the best of the rest yet again.