Fr.O Neills 0:15 v Midleton 1:10

As the saying goes"it's never over til the fat lady sings"and how true this proved to be last Sat.in Shanagarry against Midleton in the Jnr.A Football C/ship.On a dry but windy day we lost the toss and were favoured with the elements in the first half,it took us 10 mins.to register our first score of the day a point courtesy of Darragh Sexton this after Midleton had put 2 points on the board,Brian McCarthy followed this up with 2 well taken frees to put us ahead by a point after 14 mins.of play but in between these scores we had our Goalkeeper Dave Hyde to thank as he brought off 2 very good saves to stop Midleton from pulling away from us midway through the half.Midleton leveled matters on the 18th min.mark with a point of their own and soon after Liam O Driscoll and Brian McCarthy fired over a point each to put us back in the driving seat with 22 mins.gone,it was end to end stuff at this stage and it was Midleton who finished the stronger by scoring 2 more points to level matters at the short whistle.The 2nd.half started as the 1st did with Midleton puting 2 well taken points on the board on the 34th and 37th min.we replied with another free from Brian McCarthy after 42 mins.with Midleton doing like wise after 44 mins.Brian Mc.then scored a beauty of a point from well out on the r/h wing on the 45th min.and he then leveled matters once more with a well taken 45 into the wind with 48 mins gone.Midleton replied once more with another point of the own on the 49th min.and followed this up with a cracking goal on the 50th min.mark to put them 4 points up with 10 mins.left on the clock,try as we did we were finding it more and more difficult to break down a tough Midleton defence and with 5 mins.remaining we were still 4 points down with most of us thinking that we probably needed a goal to salvage the game,Eoin McCarthy then fired over a very good score on the 55th min.mark and one could sense that our lads were not going to give this one up easily,up stepped Podge Butler on the 58th min.with a cracking point then Rob.O Donoghue did likewise on the 59th min.mark this was just reward for Rob.who had put in a superb display after coming on at half time and when Podge leveled it all up on the stroke of full time with another super point it was nothing more than we deserved after a great battling performance from every one on the field.So we headed into two 10 min.periods of extra time and it was Midleton again who were first to score in the very first min.we replied straight away through a Brian McCarthy fr.to level matters again and with the legs and minds of both sets of players starting to get tired mistakes were begining to happen with both Teams geting into good attacking positions only for possesion to be lost at the vital moment it was tit for tat for the next 5 mins.with neither defence willing to give in and when Brian Mc.fired over 2 more pointed free's on the 7th and 10th min.of the first period of extra time it gave us a bit of a cushion entering the final 10 mins,we also knew that a 2 point lead was the most dangerous of leads to have starting the final period of extra time and that Midleton were going to throw the kitchen sink at us and that they did but time and time again our defence stood strong and twarted every attack from the Midleton lads with our Keepr Dave Hyde bringing off 2 wonderfull point blank saves with only a couple of mins to go and when Referee Niall Barrett sounded the final whistle we had secured our spot in the semi-final of the years East Cork C/ship.where we will meet the winners of the Youghal v Castlemartyr 1/4 final some time later on in the year,Great credit to both Teams for a tough but fair 80 mins.of pure C/ship Football with our attention now turning to Hurling with the first rnd.of the Intermediate C/ship just 5 weeks away on the June weekend.

Team: D.Hyde,J.T.Goold,M.Pomphrett,B.Hayes,J.Barry,R.O Neill,K.Hegarty,N.Griffin,P.Butler(0:02),D.Sexton(0:01),R.Cullinane,E.Holland,L.O Driscoll(0:01),B.McCarthy(0:09,0:06fr.0:02 45's0:01),E.McCarthy(0:01).Subs.used:R.O Donoghue(0:01) for D.Sexton h/t,A.Brett for E.McCarthy 63 mins.E.McCarthy for L.O Driscoll 70mins,A.Kenneally for K.Hegarty 72mins,P.McMahon for R.Cullinane 74 mins.not used:S.Sloane,J.O Driscoll,I.Lane,R.Hyde,J.Millerick,B.Sweeney,F.Duffy,D.Colbert,E.Kenefick,D.O Flynn,B.Murphy,G.O Leary,S.Harrington.