Deadly Doyle’s one-man show
Anne’s sharpshooter hits entire 3-10 tally to deny Alley
ST. ANNE’S BUFFERS ALLEY 3-10 0-12
PAUDI DOYLE produced one of the performances of this, or any, year as St. Anne’s bested Buffers Alley to claim the Enniscorthy Guardian Under-15 hurling Premier shield in St. Patrick’s Park, Enniscorthy, recently.
The Rathangan club’s star performer was moved around the opposition half of the field to devastating effect, scoring all 3-10 of his side’s tally, to keep a gutsy opponent at arm’s length for the entirety of the 60 minutes of intense hurling.
Not that any one guy wins a game by himself, but while shooting might not have been the forté of everyone in tricky, windy conditions, the St. Anne’s attack knew the time and place to look for their talisman and teed him up with some superb assists.
Quietly, the St. Anne’s defence was magnificent. Buffers Alley put them under tremendous pressure at times, particularly in the third quarter, and it’s almost impossible to overstate how important it was that they kept the ball out of the net.
Given the wind, the contest was finely balanced after the opening half, despite the fact that St. Anne’s led by 2-6 to 0-4.
It was anyone’s game in the first 20 minutes as the sides traded point for point, with scores from Tomás Whelan, Jack Redmond (two) and Brian Doran matching Doyle’s four from open play.
However, St. Anne’s got four hugely important scores in the final ten minutes of the half.
Two of those were goals, with Doyle pulling home from long-distance, searching passes from Andrew and Dylan Moran respectively.
While St. Anne’s registered just once to the opposition’s seven times in the third quarter, it was probably the most important score of the game.
Redmond, Edward Harney and Whelan had points on the board before Doyle raced away on the right and drilled home his hat-trick major.
Buffers Alley narrowed the gap with four points in a row, including a trio from Redmond, but they eventually ran out of steam.
The longer the game wore on, the more comfortable St. Anne’s were, and fittingly Doyle scored the last three points as his side took a memorable Premier shield.
St. Anne’s: Jack Kelly; Kevin Byrne, Finn Ryan, Cian Walsh; Shane Ryan, Andrew Moran, Bobby Reville; Dylan Moran, Cathal Murphy (capt.); Páidí Power, Paudi Doyle (310, 0-4 frees), Rúairí Flannery; Eoin McMahon, Robert Moore, Jack Martin. Subs. - Liam Berry for McMahon (31), Dara Sinnott for Walsh (60+1), also Dara Jones, Justin McMahon, Dara Browne, Conor Kennedy, Aidan Brennan, Mogue Cleary.
Buffers Alley: Callum Whelan-Byrne; Colin Kinsella, Seán Kirwan, Niall Furlong; Daniel Doyle, Edward Harney (joint capt., 0-2 frees), Brian O’Meara; Cian Dobbs, Jack Redmond (joint capt., 0-6 4 frees); Shane Meleady, Brian Doran (0-1), Eoin Fenlon; Tomás Walsh, Tomás Whelan (0-3), Fiachra
Fortune. Subs. - Bryan Kirwan for Fortune (44), also Brandon Murphy, D.J. Cullen, Kevin Doyle, Tristan Whelan-Byrne, Tom Fanning,
Liam Hendrick, Jason Hearne, Bobby Keegan, D.J. Donnelly, M.J. Fox.
Referee: Mick Lanigan (Shelmaliers).