St Flannan’s 1-18 West Waterford Colleges 1-13
West Waterford West Waterford Colleges slim chance of reaching the latter stages of this year’s Dr Harty Cup competition ended on Wednesday last when they suffered a five-point defeat to 21-time champions St Flannan’s at Bansha on Wednesday last.
Niall Arthur was the Ennis Colleges scorer in chief on the day scoring 10 of his side’s points, seven of which came from placed balls. However he fell somewhat short of the man of the match accolade which went to their centre-back Paul Flanagan, who despite having to retire early due to injury, gave an exhibition of hurling reminiscent of Ken McGrath all of 14 years ago as a minor against Clare on the same ground.
Playing against the strong wind in the opening half, West Waterford Colleges got off to a good start when Luke Egan pointed a free with less than 30 seconds played.
The Ennis side’s response however was rapid and decisive, as a lengthy Paul Flanagan drive made its way to Tony Kelly at the other end of the field who slammed the ball to the back of the West Waterford Colleges net.
Now in front, the Ennis students piled on the pressure, but with Luke Egan, Jamie Barron and Colm Walsh at the top of their game, the Clare lads struggled to add significantly to their early goal. West Waterford Colleges at the other end also made chances, but found it tough to break through the Flannan’s defence superbly marshalled by Flanagan.
West Waterford, however did make one major impact before the break when Sean Ryan laid the ball off Brendan Phelan and the Ballinameela clubman made no mistake in driving the ball to the net to leave six points between the sides.
The Deise boys began the second half in a very businesslike manner, laying siege on their opponents’ goal, but the Ennis side managed to keep the Friary and Dungarvan CBS combination at bay.
Just past the midway stage of the second half West Waterford had a glorious chance to maybe pull off a win at which time they were two points down. Colm Curran beat Niall Woods who raced out of the St Flannan’s goal for possession of a fifty-fifty ball, but the Dungarvan player’s tamely-hit shot failed to reach the empty Banner net and Woods was able to race back and clear the ball.
This was West Waterford’s last main scoring chance of note, and Flannan’s were able to notch on another number of points to win by five and ensure that their name will be included in the draws for the quarter-final stages which will take place mid-January.
St Flannan’s: N Woods; C Doohan, G O’Connell, D Laferty; C O’Gorman, P Flanagan, S O’Halloran; B Heir, J Guilfoyle; N Arthur, C Malone, T Kelly; A Considine, E Malone, D O’Halloran. Subs: M O’Neill for O’Halloran, S O’Connor for C Malone, C O’Loughlin for Flanagan.
Scorers: N Arthur 0-10 (7 frees), T Kelly 1-1, D O’Halloran 0-2, A Considine, C O’Gorman, C Malone, M O’Neill, S O’Connor 0-1 each.
West Waterford Colleges: D Duggan; S Keoghan, C Walsh, J Barron; K Phelan, M Power, L Egan; T Curran, S Crotty; K Power, B Phelan, J Curran; S Ryan, Colm Curran, Cathal Curran.
Scorers: Colm Curran 0-5 (5 frees), S Ryan 0-3, B Phelan 1-0, L Egan (2 frees), S Crotty 0-2 each, Cathal Curran 0-1.
Referee: J Ryan (Tipperary).
