Tinahely look unstoppable in Junior ‘C’ Facile win over Valleymount Two from two for Kilcoole

TINAHELY VALLEYMOUNT 11-18 0-9

TINAHELY’S glaring superiority within the Junior ‘C’ football championship was hammered home on Thursday evening last when they destroyed a visiting Valleymount by 11-18 to 0-9.

This victory comes hot on the heels of their dismantling of Stratford-Grangecon the week previous and the results should send a stark warning to the teams they have yet to meet in the early stages of this championship.

Simply put, they are too strong for the Junior ‘C’ championship. This well populated team would challenge hard for the Junior ‘B’ and easily hold their own in the Junior ‘A’ leaving them with a gross advantage in the lowest grade of competition in the county.

In fairness to Tinahely – beaten in last year’s decider by Ashford – it’s not their fault that they are enjoying ruddy health in a club that is motoring along. When your main team is at the top of their game the effects are always felt by the second or third teams and this is very much the case in Tinahely.

They have a very strong spine in their team. From Tony Lacey at full-back, Kevin Doyle or Ray McGlynn at centre half, David Dillon and Niall Gorman at midfield, Brian Hickey at 11 and David Blake at full-forward, it’s not hard to see why they are racking up big scores. Add in Willie Quaile enjoying a superb start to the championship with a man of the match performance against Valleymount and the impressive Eric Donohue prowling at corner-forward and the fact that they have very decent subs to call on and it’s obviously going to take a monumental effort to stop them.

It was clear from the off in this game that Tinahely had too much for Valleymount. They led 6-10 to 0-1 at the break; Valleymount scoring after 20 minutes through the impressive Alan Browne. Tinahely had goals from Eric Donohue, Brian Hickey, David Blake, Padraig Murphy (2) and a fisted effort from David Dillon.

It’s a measure of the character of a team and the players within it as to how they deal with being on the receiving end of such a drubbing at half-time. Valleymount had numerous chances in front of the posts in the second half. It wasn’t all one-way traffic to be fair, but when Tinahely broke they were in a different place than their western visitors.

But Valleymount didn’t lie down, to their credit. They kept going in the face of the Tinahely assault and they enjoyed a much better second half going forward and in the last quarter they really upped their game and they recorded second half points from Alan Browne (2), Keiv Leonard, Davy Miley (3), Sean Geoghegan and Gary Geoghegan and they will take scalps from their remaining games.

The big problem for the rest of the teams in this competition who go on to qualify for the knock-out stages is that the juggernaut that is the Tinahely team are going to be the significant elephant in the room when it comes to preparing and hoping for championship success.

– Tinahely: David Dillon 3-0, Padraig Murphy 2-0, Willie Quaile 1-5, Brian Hickey 1-3, David Blake 1-3, Niall Gorman 0-5, Eric Donohue 2-1, Stewart Gilbert 1-0, Damien Cullen 0-1.

Valleymount: Alan Browne 0-3 (1f), Davy Miley 0-3, James Clarke 0-1, Sean Geoghegan 0-1, Gary Geoghegan 0-1.

William Lillis; Aaron Doyle, Tony Lacey, Thomas Dalton; Wilie Quaile, Kevin Doyle, Danny Quinn; David Dillon, Niall Gorman; Damien Cullen, Brian Hickey, Padraig Murphy; Sean Pollard, David Blake, Eric Donohue. Subs: Enda O’Keeffe, Stewart Gilbert, Ronan Hedderman, Shane Kenny.

Conor Harpur; Andy Farrington, Aidan Miley, Aidan Condon; Keiv Leonard, Alan Browne, David Richardson; Johnny Cahill, Diarmuid Nugent; Sean Geoghegan, Adam Condon, Conor Ryan; Gary Geoghegan, Davy Miley, James Clarke. Subs: Paul Carroll, Michael Ryan.

Jimmy Lawler

Scorers Tinahely: Valleymount: Referee: at Kilcoole

Kilcoole with a halftime lecture ringing in their ears started brightly with five of the first seven scores to extend the lead out to six. Scullion and roaming corner back Jonathon McGuire with two excellent efforts before Walsh clipped another and Murray added two long range frees. Stone and ageless Barndarrig centre back Andrew Reilly with a magical 50 yard free kept Barndarrig in with a shout.

Once more silly wides and over elaboration from Kilcoole allowed Barndarrig to stay in touch and when a run of points from Stone, two from Murray and another audacious long range point from Reilly left two in it with ten left.

Kilcoole needed to steady the ship and thanks to Conor Scullion they did the wing forward landing a mammoth effort from out on the right wing with five minutes left to close the scoring.

A competitive game where Kilcoole were the better team and deserved their victory however sloppy wides and tremendous heart by Barndarrig allowed the visitors remain in contention untill the very end. Andrew Reilly with his scores and his ability to spray passes out of the backline with his left boot was a joy to watch and with Malachy Stone was Barndarrig’s best players. They provided seven points of the total from the half back line.

For the visitors Jordan Murray, Shane Evans and Jay Walsh were all impressive but corner back Jonathan McGuire was outstanding . He was tenacious in the tackle when moved to midfield he picked up a mountain of breaking ball and even chipped in with a long range score to keep Kilcoole on top in the early stages of the second half.

Kilcoole: