Mahon’s big scoring spree powers

RAPPAREES BUFFERS ALLEY

THE SCORING prowess of Tomás Mahon proved too much for Buffers Alley to overcome in the opening round of the Pettitt’s Senior hurling championship Group A in Innovate Wexford Park on Saturday.

The Rapparees sharpshooter racked up an impressive personal haul of 2-11, clinically nabbing the all-important pair of majors to see off a spirited but somewhat underwhelming Buffers Alley side.

Looking at the scoresheet, the Monamolin men would surely have expected to emerge victorious by keeping the rest of their opponents’ line-up to just six points from four different scorers, and in that sense it was a job reasonably well done.

Especially because this Rapparees side can be a real handful, as they have scoring threats all over the park and many of them were successfully blunted. The Bellefield side could counter that they were often nullified by a string of fouls and it wouldn’t be an inaccurate account either.

In truth, while four points separated the sides at the end, and there was never more than five between them at any stage, it never felt like the Rapparees were going to be denied the victory.

In that sense, the game was played on their terms. They did what they needed to do without setting the world alight, and they got the two points for the victory. Collect them and move on is the name of the game in April.

Buffers Alley chose to operate a two-man full-forward line, dropping Ciarán Murphy back into the full-back line and playing Paudie Reidy more as a third midfielder. If the idea was to nullify the threat of a talented Rapps middle third of the field, it worked pretty well.

But it proved to be a struggle to consistently get much change from the stingy Rapps defence. The Alley did pillage three goals but 13 scores doesn’t win too many games in this championship.

The Enniscorthy town side looked to be getting the early measure of their opponents when they moved into a 0-5 to 0-2 lead after 14 minutes.

Mahon had three of those, Jack Kelly scored a cracking point, and Darragh Pepper picked off his first in the early exchanges.

A third Paul O’Leary point narrowed the gap to two and the Alley led for the first and only time in the 17th minute when Ross Donohoe’s long ball broke off O’Leary to Andrew Kenny and he swept the sliothar home.

Their advantage lasted less than 60 seconds. Pepper levelled the game before providing the searching ball to the edge of the square that broke off defender Ciarán Murphy’s hurl, into the path of Mahon, and he pulled to the net.

The three-point advantage at that stage increased into a 1-9 to 1-5 lead at the interval. Clearly, Buffers Alley needed a positive start to the sec emerged f battle.

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