Ballyhogue reign after replay
Minor championship double completed in eight days
BALLYHOGUE COMPLETED a Wexford People Minor championship double in St. Patrick’s Park, Enniscorthy, recently, adding the Roinn 2 hurling title to the Roinn 1 football crown they won eight days earlier.
They needed a replay, and all the guts and heart they could muster, as they fought off an unrelenting Monageer-Boolavogue challenge. Sometimes it wasn’t pretty but there’s no denying that they were deserving victors.
After a quality first-half, it looked like it would be a formality. Ballyhogue were dynamic in the opening 30 minutes, their midfield of David Hennebry and Tobias Redmond was purring, and there looked to be very little hope for their opponents.
They picked off enough scores but left three points out there as they struggled to find consistency from dead-balls. However, you don’t get to, and draw, a county final by whimpering under pressure.
Monageer-Boolavogue turned the game on its head in the second-half. They were territorially dominant and it’s almost inconceivable that they only managed to add four points after the break.
It just doesn’t correlate to the pattern of the game, but that’s hurling sometimes.
In a sign of things to come, Hennebry and Redmond had scores on the board to give the Bree boys an early two-point advantage.
Despite an Evan Murphy point, Monageer-Boolavogue nabbed three of the next four, with Eoin Gahan, Darren Kelly and Patrick Redmond on target to make it 0-3 each after 20 minutes.
Undoubtedly Ballyhogue did critical damage in the final ten minutes of the half.
The first goal came when Hennebry went long, and Tommy Kennedy got blocked out, but the ball fell to Ben Asple and he whipped powerfully to the net.
After Asple added a free, Hennebry went haring away on the left of goal in added-time and sent an unstoppable shot high to the roof of Euan Pender’s net.
Trailing by 2-4 to 0-3 at the interval,
Monageer-Boolavogue responded superbly and cut three Ronan O’Leary points off the deficit by the 41st minute.
They still trailed by four after Jamie
Fitzpatrick and O’Leary traded points at the end of the third quarter.
Monageer-Boolavogue peppered the goal in the remaining time, and Shane
Roche made a fantastic save from Fionn Walshe, but Ballyhogue got the only two points of the last 15 minutes from Asple as they completed an historic double.
With their Under-13 boys and Junior men also successful, hurling is thriving in the club at present.
Ballyhogue: Shane Roche; Ben Harrington, Conor Dawson, Conor Rodgers; Jack Kinsella, Eamon Doyle, Leigh Whelan; David Hennebry (capt., 1-1), Tobias Redmond (0-1); Martin Doyle, Evan Murphy (0-1), Liam Doyle; Ben Asple (1-3, 0-2 frees), Tommy Kennedy, Jamie Fitzpatrick (0-1). Subs. - Darragh Bates for Dawson, inj (30+2), James Reville for M. Doyle (46), also Adam Broaders, Tiarnan Cleary, Alan Doyle, Conor O’Brien, Mark Asple.
Monageer-Boolavogue: Euan Pender; Alan O’Neill, Ryan Farrell-Kenna, T.J. Breen; Johnny O’Brien, Fionn Walshe, Rúairí Leacy; Eoin Dolan, Ronan O’Leary (capt., 0-4, 3 frees); Eoin Gahan (0-1), Patrick Redmond (0-1), Darren Kelly (0-1 line ball); James Mernagh, Dylan Brady, Conor Dolan. Subs. (unused) - Jason Breen, Ryan Collier, Jim Gahan, James De Lacey, Joe Ivory, Ian Rigley, Niall Doran.
Referee: Seán Whelan (St. Martin’s).