St. Rynagh’s 3-10 Kilcormac/Killoughey 1-11

[Lone Shark]

I’m a long time on record as saying that Offaly Hurling is not short on light, wristy players that have all the skills – but that we still lack a spine of steel, men of iron will and fierce resolve to back up the hurlers as they perform their chicanery. Men like Martin Hanamy, Michael Duignan, Hubert Rigney, Padraig Horan. Rynagh’s men. Much like Offaly football will struggle for as long as blue chip clubs like Edenderry, Ferbane and Walsh Island languish contributing very few players to the Offaly senior panel, and no starters, so it is with Offaly hurling and Rynagh’s. Clubs like Birr, Coolderry and Kinnitty have all given us as many legends as the Banagher/Cloghan club, but none have contributed enforcers and hard hurlers to the same degree, and these are what the county is crying out for at the moment.

So on the grounds that Offaly hurling could do with a Rynagh’s revival, Lone Shark has very much been on the side of the blue and gold boys any of the last few games they’ve played. Last night’s performance would not lead you to believe that the Sean Robbins Cup will be returning to the banks of the Shannon, far from it, but it at the very least scotched the rumours of dissension in the Rynagh’s camp that were floating around, and did some of the younger players’ reputations no harm at all as there were some fine individual performances all over the field.

A lively enough breeze was blowing towards the main road end of Moystown pitch, and starting off into the breeze, Rynagh’s got out of the blocks a lot quicker than K/K, Kevin Kelly and Declan Tanner getting the first couple of points. A low scoring game looked on the cards, as both sides were playing with nominal corner forwards – Gary Healy and Tony Spain – playing in withdrawn roles around the middle. With that in mind, a two point head start into the breeze looked valuable – but it was eroded sharply with the best score of the game. A long puck out from Stephen Byrne – most of his puck outs in the first half were dropping just short of the Rynagh’s 20m line – broke to the right, and Joey Wynne took the ball in and burst along the endline. He drew McIntyre out to him, and handpassed across to Ciarán Slevin, about 10 metres out. Even though the ball was dropping from a height, Slevin met the ball with a shoulder high first time strike that rifled into the top corner and gave his side the lead. Diarmuid Horan responded with the first of his scores for the day, before Slevin restored the lead with a free. Rynagh’s now responded with a goal of their own, which was not unlike the K/K effort in build up, but certainly had nothing of the style.

A crossfield ball was picked up by Gary Healy, who got past his own man along the line before trying to cut out from the end line when Healion was on his hurl, and he succeeded in scooping the ball into the middle. Mulhare and McConville scrapped for it, but when the ball hit the deck Mulhare got the pull, and from the close range Byrne was unable to react.

From here on scoring was scarce, and yellow cards were more common than white flags. Pulling in general in the game was hard, and while you wouldn’t necessarily say it was dirty, it was quite flagrant and dangerous, and deserved sanction. K/K fans in particular would have had reason for grievance a few times, in that Eamonn Lee was being marked aggressively by Hubert Rigney, and on a couple of occasions hard hits on him went unpunished. It threatened to spill over a few times, a couple of players on both sides showing plenty of enthusiasm to get involved unnecessarily, and Declan Tanner and Cha Hand were both fortunate enough to stay on the field as their own personal battle was just looking for flashpoints anywhere on the field to ignite it. Kevin Rigney too got yellow for a wild pull at a throw ball that could easily have justified a card of a darker hue.

Rynagh’s held the lead, kept intact by a couple of Kevin Kelly frees, up until the 26th minute when K/K finally had a good spell and gave themselves the lead going into the break – the least they needed with the wind advantage going against them in the second half hour. Points from Joey Wynne out toward the sideline, Slevin from play when he blocked down Ciarán Flannery, a free from just inside his own half and on the sideline by Cassidy (not even struck all that well – another indication of the strength of the wind), and a 70m free from Slevin left the half time score at 1-7 to 1-5 in favour of K/K.

Gary Kelly opened the scoring for Rynaghs after 90 seconds of the second half, but for the next 8 minutes Kilcormac held the upper hand, and looked once again like they might be favourites to take the spoils, Slevin points from a free and from play putting them three in front.

If Rynagh’s had to chip away at this lead, they mightn’t have found it too easy – however instead it got handed to them on forty minutes, when Stephen Byrne made the kind of error that’s all too common in his game. Diarmuid Horan won the ball in the corner, and now being marked by Colm Cassidy, he was running out from the end line when he attempted to shoot for a point back over his shoulder. He didn’t catch it cleanly, and the balled lobbed and dipped over Stephen Byrne who inexplicably was some five yards off his line, and fell into the far corner of the goals. It was a soft score to concede in a game where scores were hard come by, and sucked a lot of the life out of the Kilcormac team.

Only three minutes later the Horan family had a less fortunate break, as out on the sideline in front of the stands, Cathal, who had been having a quiet but steady game at wing back, hit the ground after a five man tussle with Eamonn Lee in possession but bottled up. He was getting attention for some time, and ended up being carried off with an ice pack to his knee. To lose a player of his calibre would be a big blow to Rynagh’s aspirations, particularly with a huge clash with Birr looming.

If Cathal’s day was not the best, Diarmuid’s was about to get better again. Once more beating Cassidy to the ball after it had been handpassed into him – Cassidy had a very poor game by the way, and really looked utterly disinterested - he got to the edge of the penalty area and shot high past Stephen Byrne to give his side a goal lead, 3-6 to 1-9.

Gary Kelly followed this up with a point some three minutes later, and with the wind, the extra back sweeping up loose ball and the poor form of the K/K forwards the game looked over. Kilcormac went 23 minutes, from the 34th to the 57th minutes without scoring, and when they finally reignited, it was midfielder Mark Leonard who did the needful. He fired over a couple of great scores either side of a Declan Tanner point for Rynagh’s, and left the bare goal between them going into injury time.

A minute into injury time and Horan could have wrapped the game up, but he saw the headlines and left K/K in the game. Kevin Kelly won a long ball into the two man FF line, drew both defenders and handpassed in to the now unmarked Horan. He was one on one, but the whole Rynagh’s crowd were crying out for him to just tap it over the bar and take the insurance score. He went low, Byrne saved, and needless nerves were frayed during the oddly extensive six and a half minutes of added time. No doubt it’ll have been pointed out to him in the dressing room, and happily for him it didn’t cost his side anything on this occasion.

As it turned out, the only remaining scores were to come from Rynagh’s, Nigel Woods coming from midfield and a long range Gary Kelly free sealing matters. K/K got the ball into Lee’s hands a few times as he looked to charge at goals, but it hadn’t really been his day all day – he got one good point, but was also responsible for around five wides – and he never looked like threatening Damien McDermott in between the Rynagh’s posts.

Overall, from a K/K point of view, this was a tepid and unmotivated display, and looked like the game of a team who were just spiritually crushed as well as crushed in the sporting sense in their last game against Birr. It certainly wasn’t a patch on the fired up outfit that ran Ballyskenach ragged in their first outing. From a county point of view, Byrne was fine, but another awful goal conceded was very costly, Healion dropped a couple in the first half but was largely in charge, Mark Hand wanted a fight and not a hurling match most of the way through, Cassidy was like a lad who thinks that at this time of year he should be in America, Lee fought hard but was completely off his radar, Sadler was ineffective and Slevin was deadly accurate but only when the ball was fed to him perfectly. He has all the tools, but lacks the graft to put himself in a position to use them more often.

On the Rynagh’s side, Ciarán Flannery hurled some great ball, but is a little loose for a corner back. If Horan is unfit to return the next day he’ll probably find himself in a wing back slot, where in the long run he should be more at home. Cathal Horan was good if a little subdued until his injury, and up front both Diarmuid Horan and Kevin Kelly did some good things with the ball, and scored well. Horan was a bit nervy early on, probably unsurprisingly after a tough day in Croke Park on Sunday, but once he got into the game he was a real threat. The dominant Rynagh’s of the 1960’s and 1970’s is a bit away yet, but if this bunch can get the club back to eminence, they might just drag Offaly intercounty hurling up a notch or two with it.

Scorers:
St. Rynagh’s: Diarmuid Horan 2-1, Kevin Kelly 0-3 (2 frees), Paudie Mulhare 1-0, Gary Kelly 0-3 (1 free), Declan Tanner 0-2, Nigel Woods 0-1

Kilcormac/Killoughey: Ciarán Slevin 1-6, (0-4 frees), Mark Leonard 0-2, Joey Wynne 0-1, Eamonn Lee 0-1, Colm Cassidy 0-1 (free).

Teams:
St. Rynagh’s: Damien McDermott; Conor Hernon, Pat McIntyre, Ciarán Flannery; Michael Rigney, Hubert Rigney, Cathal Horan; Nigel Woods, Shane Horan; Gary Kelly, Declan Tanner, Paudie Mulhare; Diarmuid Horan, Kevin Kelly, Gary Healy.

Subs: John Ryan for Cathal Horan (inj).

Kilcormac/Killoughey: Stephen Byrne; John Flaherty, Peter Healion, John Grogan; Keith McConville, Mark Hand, Colm Cassidy; Mark Leonard, Kevin Rigney; Kevin Sadler, Eamonn Lee, Joey Wynne; Ciarán Slevin, Paul Cummins, Tony Spain.

Subs: David Gleeson for Paul Cummins, Thomas Craven for Joey Wynne.


Referee: Tony Carroll

[Flatcap]

shocking poor performance from kilcormac altogether. a load of the forwards were at nothing and were basically left on the whole game. sadler never got into the game, cummins wouldnt have scored if he was there all night, and until leonard woke up at the end they were seriously outfought at midfield. at this rate drumcullen will bate us.