Kinnitty 0-16 Shinrone 1-8

A forum to air your views on Offaly GAA matters and beyond.
Post Reply
User avatar
Lone Shark
All Star
Posts: 5377
Joined: Fri Oct 29, 2004 5:21 pm
Club: Ferbane
Location: Roscommon
Contact:

Kinnitty 0-16 Shinrone 1-8

Post by Lone Shark »

When the draw was made for this year’s Offaly Hurling Championship, both these sides would have been quietly relieved at securing a slot in Group 2, which on paper at least looked considerably the less competitive of the two supposedly “strong” sections. Up until Saturday night all results in the group had gone as expected, including these sides registering wins against Seir Kieran and Clara, while each suffering twelve point defeats at the hands of Coolderry. Now with only one game remaining, Kinnitty’s solid display here has left them long odds on to secure a playoff spot, while Shinrone now look likely to be involved in a winner take all clash with Seir Kieran.

2005 is the twentieth anniversary of the last of Kinnitty’s nine Offaly senior championships, and that twenty years has seen some very low times for the famous club. A mini-revival began during their last few group games in 2004, and they appear to have continued that development on into 2005. While based on Saturday’s display they are still a long way off the benchmark set by Coolderry last year and Birr for nigh on a decade, they are doing a lot of simple things well, and certainly look likely to provide a stiff challenge to whoever they meet in the knockout stages, as looks inevitable now given the poor current form of Clara, their opponents in their last group game.

When Shinrone begin to analyse where things went wrong in this clash, they will surely have to look at how their opponents performed solidly over the hour, improving as they game went on, and contrast that with how they themselves failed to build on a quite promising start.

Kinnitty did open the scoring through Matthew McRedmond after less than a full minute had expired, but they very much played second fiddle to Shinrone for the rest of the opening quarter, as with Michael Cordial in inspired form, the men in red seized the initiative early on. He was hurling a lot of ball from midfield, and succeeded in putting their first point on the board. The game then burst into life with the only goal on 9 minutes. Eddie Bevans picked up the ball some 25m from goal, and was hookied in attempting to score a point only to see the ball break in front of him. He ran onto it again, initially struggling to get it under control, but when the ball dropped to the ground at the right corner of the penalty area he let fly first time across Liam Bergin and into the corner of the net. Placed balls from a Cordial 65 and a Bevans free out on the sideline completed the scoring in the first quarter, with Kinnitty yet to really ignite.

A simple Richie McRedmond free on 16 mins stemmed the red tide, before Michael Cleere got the first of his four points with a fine score from 70 metres out on the stand side. He and Cordial dominated the scoring for the rest of the half, each contributing four scores to a half time tally of Shinrone 1-5, Kinnitty 0-7. For all their early dominance, Shinrone could easily have gone into the break in arrears, and but for a fine save from Thomas Brereton in injury time would have done. Justin Kinsella ran at the defence, beating his own man and drawing out John Doughan from full back. He flicked the ball on towards Clendennin in front of goals, but a superb piece of anticipation from Brereton saw the ball deflected out for a 65.

Shinrone got the opening score of the second spell, a point from Mark Morkan from out on the left side that bounced off the top of the crossbar, but from then on they struggled to create chances and conceded the next five scores in succession, to Richie and Matthew McRedmond, Justin Kinsella, Liam Brewer and Richie McRedmond again in that order. The Kinnitty midfield and half back line had completely taken control in this 12 minute spell, with Michael Cleere, Andrew McRedmond and this reporter’s man of the match, James Rigney, completely in control. Daniel Hoctor was not showing the form that prompted John McIntyre to start him throughout the national league campaign, and various players were tried in the half forward line to no avail. Sean Ormond was battling hard but what high ball was not caught first time by the Kinnitty players was invariably swept up by Rigney who was covering countless metres up and down the pitch.

Another Cordial free with fifteen minutes remaining broke the run of scores, only for Kinnitty to tag on another three points in succession. Three substitutes were introduced by the Shinrone management almost at once to stem the tide, but ultimately Kinnitty were secure in possession of their lead, barring a nervous moment just into injury time when Daniel Hoctor, now in the full forward line, caught a high ball and turned along the line and got his shot off only for it to be blocked by Liam Berginin goals. The subsequent 65 was lofted in and dropped towards the line, but in typically effervescent fashion, Rigney was on hand to pick up, drive out and clear. The game summed up in one fleeting moment.

Scorers:
Kinnitty: Matthew McRedmond 0-4, Richie McRedmond 0-4 (0-2 frees), Michael Cleere 0-4 (2 ‘65s), Justin Kinsella 0-2, Colm Coughlan 0-1, Liam Brewer 0-1.
Shinrone: Michael Cordial 0-5 (1 free, 1 ’65), Eddie Bevans 1-1 (0-1 free), Mark Morkan 0-1, Sean Ormond 0-1.

Teams:
Kinnitty: Liam Bergin; Paddy Whelan, Fearghal Kealey, Liam Bergin; Liam Brewer, Andrew McRedmond, Michael Cleere; James Rigney, Enda Grimes; Matthew McRedmond, Justin Kinsella, Colm Coughlan; Richie McRedmond, John Clendennin, Stephen Molloy.

Subs: Liam O’Brien for Stephen Molloy.

Shinrone: Thomas Brereton; Colin O’Meara, John Doughan, Brendan Keeshan; John Cleary, Willie Comerford, Denis Doughan; Michael Cordial, Daniel Hoctor; Eddie Bevans, Sean Ormond, Mark Morkan; Kevin Reid, Declan Loughnane, Mark Bevans.

Subs: Thomas Hannon for Denis Doughan, David Ormond for Mark Bevans, Martin Keeshan for Declan Loughnane, Eugene Ryan for Kevin Reid.



Referee: Noel Flynn

Post Reply