Tourlestrane minors bring third title home to the club in a week
TOURLESTRANE TUBBERCURRY/CLOONACOOL
Minor B Championship final
3-12 1-4
On Wednesday evening on a cold, crisp, dry night at the resplendent Tourlestrane GAA grounds, the locals gave a resounding performance in a second half blitz to extinguish any hope that their South Sligo rivals Cloonacool/ Tubbercurry might have had in attaining ultimate glory. Displaying a high intensity, huge work rate and a great willingness to support each other, the youngsters in green and gold were very worthy winners at the full time whistle.
Nobody in the large attendance saw this coming during the half time break. At the throw-in the Cloonacool/Tubbercurry lads who were managed by Brian Henry and Fergus Leonard took the game to the opposition and were rewarded when lively corner forward Conor Matthews scored a great team goal after Tourlestrane had scored well taken points from Mark Lundy and the influential midfielder Cian Surlis.
Points followed from play and a free from Niall Murphy who captained the team displaying the colours of the amalgamated side, ably assisted by Sean Carnahan at midfield, only for the locals to reply with a brace from Stephen Clarke and Mark Lundy.
Some staunch defending by Oisín McCann, Dean Maloney, Conor Gavigan Oisín O’Donnell and Shane Prendergast for the visitors kept the locals at bay as Conor Matthews pointed to leave the score 1-3 to 0-5 in favour of the visitors at the short whistle.
Whatever Niall Egan and Eamonn Durkin said in the dressing room during the interval Tourlestrane emerged a totally different team in the second half.
They blew this game out of the water with well taken points from hard working midfielder Jack Walsh and Mark Lundy and two well taken goals by Stephen Clarke and the aforementioned Mark Lundy to take a firm grip on the contest.
Defenders Fergal Monaghan, Ronan Walsh, Mark Fallon, the very effective centre back Kevin O’ Hara and Feidhlim O’Donnell kept a vice-like grip on the opposing forwards for the entire second half.
A third Tourlestrane goal by the very effective and hard working centre half forward Eoin Walsh ended this game as a contest.
He was ably assisted on the half forward line by David Brennan and Tom Corcoran in the first half and by the energetic Jack Lundy in the second.
Cloonacool/Tubbercurry had hard triers in Griffin Gallagher, Sean Carnahan, Daniel O’ Dowd, Rian Moylan, Sean Whitehead, and Jack Flatley, but try as they might they could not breach the Tourlestrane rearguard during the second half.
A string of points then followed from the home team as they took full control, and the visitors seemed to run out of steam and their only reply to the home blitz was a Griffin Gallagher 45.
Tourlestrane goalkeeper Stephen Gavaghan went full stretch close to the finish, to bring off a great save from lively visiting centre forward Rian Moylan, to leave the full time score 3-12 to 1-4 in favour of the home team.
As the final whistle was sounded by referee Conor Conway, the winning trophy was presented to the Tourlestrane joint captains Cian Surlis and Kevin O’ Hara by County Board official Pat Conway.
TOURLESTRANE: S.Gavaghan, F. Monaghan, R.Walsh, M. Fallon, K.O’ Hara, F. O’ Donnell, C. Surlis, J. Walsh, D. Brennan, E. Walsh, T. Corcoran, S. Clarke, M. Lundy. Subs, J. Lundy, D. Feely, P. Tobin, N. Carney, C. Durkin, E. Leonard, J. Tracey.
CLOONACOOL/TUBBERCURRY: G. Gallagher, O. McCann, D.Maloney, C. Gavigan, O. O’ Donnell, S. Prendergast, N. Murphy, S. Carnahan, D. O’ Dowd, R. Moylan, S Whitehead, J. Flately, C. Matthews. Subs, T. Grissmanauskas, T. Lavin, R. Henry, E. Carty, C. Gallagher, L. Carty, A. Perry.
REFEREE: Conor Conway.