U9 Hurling Blitz

We have two teams of 9 and each played against their counterparts from Naomh Barog, O’Tooles and Naomh Mearnog.

Team 1:

Team 1 started slowly against a good O’Tooles team who we had beaten recently, it seems there was a lot of complacency around and despite us going in to the lead courtesy of a Matthew Brenner goal we struggled to put the game out of reach. Conor Hoyne snaffled his trademark point to put us ahead after O’Tooles had pointed but we also fell to a last second sucked punch as a long range shot from O’Tooles just went wide much to the bemusement of the umpire. In the second game against Barrogs both teams negated each other and with Darragh McLoughney in fine form at centre back ably assisted by the brilliant blocking of Sean Curran and Euan Farquarson we fought a first half rearguard action. Early in the second half Jack Boyne pounced to rifle a goal but Barrogs came back strongly to equalize. Last gasp defending from Tom Bennett and Daire de Burca enabled us to hold on while David Deneher almost won it for us with a terrific shot which just drifted wide. In our final game against near neighbours Mearnogs we finally got up to full speed however we needed some incredible goalkeeping from Ronan Furlong to keep us level going in to the second half. Ollie Twomey had been quiet for most of the game but he finally came alive an a late goal won us the game despite Mearnogs being the better side for much of the 20 minutes.

This team has great potential but due to complacency and slow starting have found themselves behind when they should be ahead and have a problem closing out games. The same is true in Football where they also need to become more of a team rather than a collection of individuals.

Team: Conor Hoyne, Jack Boyne, Tom Bennett, Euan Farquarson, Ronan Furlong, Daire de Burca, Ollie Twomey, Sean Curran, Daragh McLoughney, David Deneher, Matthew Brenner

Team 2:

In the 1st game against Naomh Barrog the team started slowly with no score at half time but with the introduction of Aaron Lambe at midfield the chances started to come and 2 second half goals from JoJo Thabo and Joaquin Shinbach settled the match. There was some great defending by Killian Bousfield at center back which ensured nothing was going to get past us as everything that came his way was dispatched back upfield. In the second game we went down by 2:1 to 1:0 to a very good and tough Portmarnock team. Conor Duffy was the star in this match as he never gave up and some hard knocks were taken in this game as the Syls players put their bodies on the line particularly midfield pairing Craig McGrattan and Krisna Joyce and Billy Lawlor in goals. The 3rd game against O'Tooles was another close encounter with scores again at a premium. Despite sustained pressure from the forwards, Daniel Stone and Conor O'Brien it looked like we would never score untill super-striker JoJo Thabo struck again late on with the winning goal after a great pass from Stephen Brady.

Team: JoJo Thabo, Joaquin Shinbach, Killian Bousfield, Craig McGrattan, Krisna Joyce, Billy Lawlor, Daniel Stone, Conor O'Brien, Stephen Brady, Aaron Lambe-Callaghan, Conor Duffy