Castlemartyr 1:07 v Fr.O Neills 0:08

Team:David Hyde,Irwin Lane,Mike Pomphrett,Barry Hayes,Niall Griffin,Ger.O Leary,John Barry,Donough O Flynn(0:1),Michael Holland,Eoin McCarthy,Alan Brett,Darragh Sexton(0:1),Shane Harrington,Brian McCarthy(0:05,0:3fr.0:2),Liam O Driscoll(0:01).

Subs used:Rob.Hyde for Alan Brett(inj.),Fergal Duffy for Shane Harrington,Ken.Hegarty for Rob.Hyde,Padraig McMahon for Darragh Sexton,Dave Colbert for Liam O Driscoll.

Our first outing of the year didn’t turn out as was hoped for on Sun.morning last on a beautifull sunny morning in Castlemartyr,lining out minus a few of the more experienced lads and with a few of our younger lads thrown in at the deep end we had to give way to a more experienced Castlemartyr outfit for a finish.Having taken the game to our opponents from the start with a good honest effort being given by all the lads we were going along nicely only to be dealt the first of 2 harsh blows with a serious injury to the hand of Alan Brett resulting in him being replaced after 13 mins,having weathered this setback and settled back into our stride we took some more good scores before being hit with a 2nd blow with the unfortunate and untimely dismissal of Ml.Holland a couple of minutes before half time,still this aside we still led 5pts.to 4pts.at the short whistle.We started the 2nd half from where we left off in the first and approaching the midway point and playing with confidence we again led by 3pts but the extra man was beginning to take its toll on our hard working defence and with Castlemartyr beginning to sense this it wasn’t long before our backs coughed up a ball which should have been cleared and in doing so it led to a Castlemartyr goal to level proceedings with 10 mins to go,try as we did from here on in we couldn’t get our forwards into the game and Castlemartyr closed out the game with 2 late points of their own to win out.So with some of our more seasoned campaigners to come back into the fold and a with another months hard graft on the training field things should come together nicely by the time the first rnd.of the C/ship comes along and going on the performances of some of the younger lads that played today the starting 15 for that game could prove very interesting when announced and to finish heres wishing our own Alan Brett a speedy recovery from his hand injury and Castlemartyrs Evan O Keeffe likewise from his facial injury.