Ballinacor in flying form! Rathnew challenge fades
at Aughrim Parsons converted the free.
James Murphy scored his second and then Rathnew’s Gary Byrne got a black card. Byrne was frustrated but it was a definite black for a tripping offence. Parsons kicked the free short to Murphy who slotted his third. Parsons quickly added another point and it was 1-06 to a point with less than 15 minutes gone.
Jonny Byrne clawed one back for Rathnew before Brian Hanlon streaked forward from wing back and got his first point of the day. Hanlon had a very good game and looked to get forward when he could.
Ronan Phelan got on the scoresheet too with a point for Ballinacor but Rathnew did well to hold them scoreless for the final ten minutes of the half and knock over a few scores of their own. It was 1-08 to 0-05 at half-time.
Whatever little hope Rathnew had of victory was shattered by a Ballinacor side that drove forward and racked up a big score. Paddy Byrne made up for not scoring in the first half with three well taken points, the first of which was when he won a ball he had no real right to win while his third showed his footballing ability when he sold a beautiful dummy.
Rathnew could only score two points in the second half as they felt the loss of their full contingent and Dean Franey fell hard and wasn’t too quick to get back on his feet.
Séamus Cosgrave got one of those points when he won a kick out and powered forward for a nice point but they just didn’t have the options in the forward line to threaten Ballinacor.
They were lucky not to have one, if not two, players also sent off. Mark Doyle was being held and swung and arm back at one of the Ballinacor players who went down in a heap. His protestations that he was trying to free himself were enough for the referee to only give him a yellow card but on another day it could easily have been red.
Moments later Philly Murphy was even luckier to escape a red card when it looked like he struck a player a couple of times but again only got yellow.
However Ballinacor didn’t mind too much and they move on to a semi-final date against DonardGlen and aim to reach a third final in four years.
Scorers – Ballinacor: Conor Parsons (2f) 0-06; James Murphy 0-04; Ger Byrne 1-00; Paddy Byrne 0-03; Brian Hanlon 0-02; Ronan Phelan, Philip Byrne, Chris Murphy, David Carter 0-01 each.
Rathnew: Jonny Byrne (2f), Ronan Doyle 0-02 each; Ronan Manley, Séamus Cosgrave, Mark Doyle 0-01 each.
Ballinacor: Ciarán O’Neill; Danny Byrne, Christopher Kennedy, Seán Byrne; Martin Byrne, James Byrne, Brian Hanlon; Danny Dowling, Paddy Byrne; Ronan Phelan, Conor Parsons, Philip Byrne; Jamie Nolan, James Murphy, Ger Byrne. Subs: Chris Murphy for Ger Byrne (17 mins); David Carter for Jamie Nolan(51 mins); Michael Dowling for Danny Byrne, John Devitt for Martin Byrne, David Green for Conor Parsons (all 55 mins).
Rathnew: Shane Brennan; Jamie O’Connor, Alan Clarke, Paul Ronan; Nigel Darragh, Gary Byrne, Ronan Manley; Stuart Murphy, Philly Murphy; Séamus Cosgrave, Jonny Byrne, Aaron Meade; Ronan Doyle, Dean Franey, Kevin Gill. Mark Doyle for Gary Byrne (10 mins, BC); Darren Ronan for Kevin Gill (49 mins).
Referee: Noel Kinsella