U14 Hurling Update

The most recent of these league matches was against Ballinteer last Tuesday night in Bridgefield and it had all the hallmarks of this team on show in the one game. Six points down at half time to a good Ballinteer team, we hurled really well in the 2nd half to turn the game around. Eoghan Buckley was particularly prominent in changing the momentum of the game with a few points from play, and he was ably assisted by strong performances by Aaron Lambe and Tom Bennett . When Sean Curran scrambled home a goal late on, it put us 2 up, a lead we held going into injury time. Then the game swung both ways again - Ballinteer goaled a 21 metre free deep into injury time to put us behind by one; however the heads never dropped and we won and pointed a free straight from the puck out and when Ballinteer went themselves with a quick puck out, it was grabbed by Killian Bousfield and sent straight back over the bar to win the game for us in very dramatic circumstances, on a scoreline of 2-12 to 4-5.

Pictures here

For Feile we were based in Skerries for the morning group stages. Unfortunately the day that was in it was not conducive to good hurling, with strong wind and driving rain, but the lads battled hard all through the tough conditions. We were slow to start in the first match against Rush/Lusk and only turned 1-3 (to no score) up at half time despite having had the wind in the first half. The fact they didn’t score in that half was testament to good defence by the likes of Pearse Clyne and Conor Duffy. However in the second half our lead was quickly pegged back by Rush/Lusk and for a while it looked like they were going to push on and beat us when they went a point up. However the lads, driven on by Daragh McLoughney, rallied and, following good battling around the square by Ronan Furlong, Sean Murphy managed to grab a late winning point to get us over the line, 1-5 to 1-4.

Unfortunately for the nerves of those on the line, the second match against Ballinteer was more of the same! Despite Ollie Twomey showing well, we only managed two points from frees in first half and it was two points each at half time. Calum Clarke had kept us in it with a couple of good saves, while Craig McGrattan and Matthew Brenner were stuck into every battle.  Ballinteer, with the wind in the second half, quickly went 2 points up before our lads never –say-die attitude came to the fore yet again and we gradually got back on top. A late Conor Hoyne penalty put us back in front and we battled on to win by another single point, 1-3 to 0-5.

With 2 hard matches behind us, and having already qualified for the semi-finals, we took the foot off the gas a little in the 3rd match and were duly beaten by Skerries. Niall Smyth, Conor O’Brien, and Krisna Joyce, with one particularly good run & clearance, showed well in this match.

The semi-final against Raheny was played in Clondalkin and while Raheny only scored once from play in the match, it was a game in truth we never looked like winning notwithstanding we did start well with a few points from play, including 2 from Eoghan Buckley. However it was hard going on a pitch which had a lot of water on it and was very heavy, and our harder morning matches began to take their toll along with a few easy frees which kept Raheny out of touch. This was despite the Trojan efforts of the likes of Dylan Andrews, Jack Boyne and Cian Grassick. David Deneher was outstanding in this match, coming out time and again with ball from the back all through. 

We were missing the injured Daire DeBurca for matches this week, while Andrew Roe, one of our main talismen, was sick for the semi-final having played in the morning. Sean Guiden was back for the Ballinteer league game and we look forward to having him back in action in the coming league matches. Otherwise we did manage to put every other player we had on the pitch for the semi-final, including Tom Hogan who bravely played through injury in his cameo.

So on we go. We have a panel of 27 active players, all born in 2001, and there is a real unity of purpose within the team now which has seen us kick on this year with everyone playing their part. If one player sums up the team, perhaps it is captain for the weekend, Euan Farquharson – he and we are never bet, and to see him chasing down lost causes all the way to the finish of the semi-final epitomised what the team is all about and hopefully we’ll all continue to drive on now for the rest of the year. 

U14 Hurling Panel: Dylan Andrews, Tom Bennett, Killian Bousfield, Jack Boyne, Matthew Brenner, Eoghan Buckley, Calum Clarke, Pearse Clyne, Sean Curran, Daire DeBurca, David Deneher, Conor Duffy, Euan Farquharson, Ronan Furlong, Cian Grassick, Sean Guiden, Tom Hogan, Conor Hoyne, Krisna Joyce, Aaron Lambe, Craig McGrattan, Daragh McLoughney, Sean Murphy, Conor O’Brien, Andrew Roe, Niall Smyth, Ollie Twomey

Pat Hoyne