Tubritt comes up trumps as Fethard draw with Harriers
JOHN TUBRITT nailed an equalising injury-time point to give Fethard a draw against Faythe Harriers in their first Pettitt’s Senior hurling championship encounter at a windy Taghmon on Saturday.
The New Ross District side led by six (0-9 to 0-3) after playing with the breeze in the first-half, but their opponents dominated the second period, eventually taking a twelve-eleven lead with five minutes remaining in this Group A game.
However, the Harriers fired six consecutive wides on the breeze as they looked for the clincher and it allowed Fethard to nip in and level the game with a late, great equaliser from the talismanic Tubritt.
Despite being well behind at the break, the Wexford town club might well be the more disappointed by the end result. Those six late wides were just part of their overall tales of woe, having swatted 19 in total throughout the 60 minutes.
Fethard, on their first foray into the Senior ranks after back-to-back promotions, should be happy enough with their efforts.
It’s going to be a learning curve at times, next week against the Rapparees especially, but they will still have a chance to pick up the results they need to keep in this grade.
As usual they weren’t found wanting for sheer effort as they took the game to their illustrious opponents with the breeze at their backs in the opening half.
Indeed, it must have felt like it was all a dream as they roared into a 0-7 to nil lead after 23 minutes.
Mark Wallace knocked over three frees in that spell, Garrett Foley picked off a nice brace, while Tubritt and Bryan Power also raised white flags as the Harriers struggled.
In that time the Páirc Charman side wafted five of their wides but they did eventually get into things.
Vitally, they added three of the final five points before the interval, all from the stick of Lee Chin. If it wasn’t fairly obvious how important Chin is to his side by just watching how they look to funnel everything in his direction, the stats tell plenty of the story.
As well as the nine points that Chin registered, he also contributed eight of his side’s wides, four in each half, including six from frees.
He started the turnaround at the start of the second-half, notching the first four points to close his side within two (0-9 to 0-7).
Wallace responded with a deadball but back came Chin with two more to leave the minimum between the teams.
Wallace tapped over his sixth in the 49th minute, but Eoin Roche and a Jim Berry line ball tied the game three minutes later.
Three minutes after they had levelled the game for the first time since it was scoreless, Conall Clancy popped over a classy point to make it 0-12 to 0-11.
Faythe Harriers were well on top at this stage but wide quickly followed wide as they failed to sew things up.
It was left to Tubritt to claim the equaliser in added-time to give his side a share of the spoils. Things don’t get much easier for Faythe Harriers either, as they will face St. Martin’s on Saturday.
Faythe Harriers: James Henebery; Cormac Byrne, Brendan Mulligan, Alex Lynch; Colm Heffernan, Richie Kehoe, Seán Banville; Fiach Ó Crualaoich, David Mooney; Jim Berry (0-1 line ball), Lee Chin (capt., 0-9, 7 frees, 1 ‘65), Michael Hanrahan; Conall Clancy (0-1), Eoin Roche (0-1), Stephen Kearney. Subs. - Conall Ó Crualaoich for F. Ó Crualaoich (30), Dean Walsh for Mooney (38).
Fethard: Seán Foley; Martin Power, Rúairí Tubrid, Richie Waters; John Tubritt (0-2), Daire Barden, Joe Sutton (0-1); Garrett Foley (capt., 0-2), Graham O’Grady; Ciarán Dwyer, Darren Foley, Eddie Power; Mark Wallace (0-6 frees), Bryan Power (0-1), Jimmy Sutton.
Referee: John O’Loughlin (Monageer-Boolavogue).