Clinical Curtis
BLESSINGTON TINAHELY 1-15 0-04
ONE thing is for certain following Blessington’s bulldozing of Tinahely’s challenge in the Senior football championship last Saturday evening and that’s that Barry O’Donovan is not afraid of making changes.
Following the defeat to AGB the opposite could have been said after Philip Healy ran riot for the majority of the game, but O’Donovan’s restructuring of the Blessington team for this clash with Tinahely made them into a unit which John Smith’s men just couldn’t compete with.
Keeping Alan Dillon to a point from a free is a fine evening’s work for any team and O’Donovan’s positioning of Steven Bohan at full-back can now be said to have been an inspired decision after the Blessington defender turned in an excellent display. He was helped in no small way by the deployment of Paul McLoughlin as a sweeper which, along with a very decent showing from Kevin Hanlon, helped starve Dillon and Tony Darcy of vital possession.
The repositioning of Mick and Anto McLoughlin in the half-forward line seemed a much better fit for the talented footballers who worked hard all evening and chipped in with three points for the cause.
There were better showings from Patrick O’Connor, Eoin Keogh, and Michael Nugent while the impact of Curtis Geraghty and Mikey O’Connor from the bench was huge, with Geraghty bagging an impressive 1-02 to really put this game to bed in the second half.
Tinahely were very disappointing and their weaknesses were ruthlessly exposed by the improved Blessington outfit over the course of the hour in Joule Park, Aughrim.
John Smith’s men did show some enterprise and endeavor in this knock-out clash but had two wides on the board when Eddie Boylan swung over the opening score after eight minutes which was promptly followed by a dainty Mick McLoughlin effort 60 seconds later after a lovely move up the field with Conor Kenny proving to be a key link man along the way.
Alan Nolan opened Tinahely’s account on 10 minutes but they had two more wides clocked up before Patrick O’Connor picked out Michael Nugent with a hand pass and Nugent lofted over a mighty beast of a point to make it 0-03 to 0-01 after 13 minutes.
A pair of poor wides from Blessington followed and then Tinahely grabbed their second point with Michael Byrne breaking up the field and his ball to Alan Dillon saw the full-forward lay off the Curtis Keating who fired over superbly to leave only one between the teams after 18 minutes.
Mick McLoughlin pointed after great work by Barry Murphy and