Win sees Glenflesk top group

COUNTY IFC GROUP 3 ROUND 2

Glenflesk 3-15 Waterville 0-4

A PRETTY comprehensive win for Glenflesk in their temporary home of Barradubh in conditions that were far from pretty to say the least last Saturday.

Heavy rain in the 90 minutes before throw-in adversely affected proceedings, but the pitch held up as best it could. Despite Waterville being competitive in the opening 10 minutes, a 27 minute spell without a score between the ninth and 36th minute proved to be their undoing in a lot of respects.

Glenflesk hit 1-8 without reply in that period after trailing by 0-2 to 0-1 with Barry O’Dwyer getting Waterville’s only first-half scores.

The ability of the Glenflesk defence to get forward and create opportunities for their attack was a big feature of their first-half play as recent All-Ireland Minor winners with Kerry, Chris O’Donoghue and Dan O’Brien put in a very impressive shift throughout.

The latter scored 0-3 in the East Kerry side’s rout as seven consecutive points gave Glenflesk a lead of 0-8 to 0-2 at the break.

Four of those scores came from defence as Shane Courtney and Alan Murphy put their names on the scoreboard, but Dara Roche was the most dependable scorer on the evening registering a total of 0-7, four coming from frees.

Waterville really needed something to go right for them early in the second period to change the course of the game, but the first second-half score was a Glenflesk goal as Lee O’Donoghue was vigilant to a high ball from Roche in guiding it to the net two minutes after the resumption.

Lee’s brother Jeff would give their side a double digit lead at 1-9 to 0-2 before O’Dwyer’s third point ended the South Kerry side’s long wait for a score. A Micheal Curran point in the 40th minute was Waterville only other score in the game as four minutes later came Glenflesk’s second goal.

Stephen O’Donoghue and Roche combined for Dara’s younger brother Ian to be the one to raise the green flag as they now led by 2-10 to 0-4. An element of luck was evident in their third goal as the game approached the final 10 minutes, midfielder Kieran Murphy’s fisted effort coming off the crossbar only to be carried over the line by a Waterville defender to make it 3-12 to 0-4 at that stage.

Adam O’Dwyer was red carded for Waterville not long after as their evening went from bad to worse in having to finish with fourteen men. Fionan Clifford had their only other decent opportunity at a score, but Glenflesk goalkeeper Roy Kelliher was equal to his effort at goal as Waterville will hope for better comforts at home in their final game this weekend as Castleisland Desmonds make the trip south.

Glenflesk ran the bench and used their full complement of six substitutes as eight different scorers in their 20 point win was something their management team of Denis Reen and Adam O’Reilly will be very pleased about.

Laune Rangers in their final group game is a throwback to last year’s quarter-final at this level where they lost out on home turf to the Killorglin side. They are more advanced as a team in the near twelve months since now you feel and they won’t be daunted by the trip to JP O’Sullivan Park this weekend.

In fact they won’t even need a result in Killorglin as they’ve already topped the group, but they might want to get the 100% record from the group just to give them a confidence booster for when they reach the knock-out stages.

GLENFLESK: Roy Kelliher; Gary O’Donoghue, Shane Courtney (0-1), Chris O’Donoghue; Alan Murphy (0-1),