Ballinrobe 0-10
Lahardane 0-9
Report by Billy Horan
ON AN ugly day in
Intermediate final, triumphing in a game which lacked as much beauty as the
conditions did. Calling this game hard-fought is about as generous as one
could be in their description. While it did produce some wonderful scores,
these struggled for recognition amongst some of the sloppy, scrappy play
which surrounded them.
This will not bother Ballinrobe too much, as they prepare for the final,
but what could perturb them is the difficulty they had in achieving the
victory, especially so given that Lahardane played the last fifteen minutes
with fourteen men, after influential midfielder James Gillespie was
dismissed for a second yellow card.
The first ten minutes of the meeting saw the eventual victors playing all
the tunes, as they raced to a four point lead. Three Tony Walkin frees were
the base of their advantage, as Lahardane defenders persisted in
ridiculous, needless fouling within pointing distance of their own posts.
Walkin duly obliged. One of their four points came from open play, a fine
score involving the combination of Walkin and Adrian Flannery, with the
latter converting.
Lahardane were left reeling after such an opening. During this period, not
only were their backs stretched under pressure from attack after attack,
but they found it difficult to prise free the stranglehold with which Sean
Grimes and Fergal O’Loughlin held the centre of the pitch. However, they
eventually raised a flag when Cormac Rowland – the man who was to prove the
conduit for much of what was good in the Lahardane attack – belted over a
free-kick. This gave the trailing side a visible lift, as Rowland swung
over a brace of frees, before James Gillespie and Rowland combined to slip
the ball to Declan Leonard, who tapped home a neat equaliser. In the space
of ten minutes, Lahardane were scoring with the ease that Ballinrobe did in
the game’s opening periods. This turnaround in Lahardane’s fortunes was
grounded in Gillespie and Damian Kelly beginning to have a more influential
say in things at midfield, thus facilitating better ball into a Lahardane
full-forward line where Leonard and Rowland always looked capable of
discomfiting the Ballinrobe defence.
Rowland nailed another brace – one an absolutely wonderful conversion from
a John McDonnell pass – before the heretofore quiet Shane Blake showed what
he had in the tank with a sweeping score. The ball was a virtual stranger
in the Lahardane half of the pitch for this period of the contest, but
Ballinrobe could have goaled late in the half, when Pat Malone’s shot was
blocked by Padraig Crean. From the resultant Sean Grimes ’50’, another
chance presented itself, as Walkin’s initial shot was blocked, before he
gathered the rebound and pointed.
Peter Ford will have realised that his charges needed a smart performance
on the resumption to get back into the rhythm of the opening minutes.
However, Lahardane enjoyed an extended half-time break, leaving Ballinrobe
out on their own for over five minutes. When Padraic Barrett did restart
the contest, one almost wished he hadn’t. The first twelve minutes of the
second half were woeful, with pulling and dragging prominent. A flurry of
Lahardane wides were one of the features of this section of the game, as
was an indication of the confusion of the Ballinrobe sideline, as Kieran
replacement for Donal Costello. Eventually, a score arrived, another
Ballinrobe sub, Maurice Horan, belting over to reduce the deficit to a
point. Then came Gillespie’s dismissal, and one feared for the Lahardane
challenge. However, Cormac Rowland scored from a free to suggest defiance
in the leaders, before repeating the dose to put McHales three ahead with
just over ten minutes remaining.
Ballinrobe, though, realised that matters were now grave, and responded
accordingly. Centre-half forward Aidan Golden, quiet up to this, hit a
couple of scores in five minutes and, allied to another Horan free, brought
Ballinrobe parity with a couple of minutes still to contest. Horan needed
only a couple of seconds, however, to swing over a free from twenty yards,
out on the left sideline, to hand Ballinrobe their final place. A
hard-earned one.
Ballinrobe: P. Tiernan; C. Jennings, P. Finnerty, R. Keane; D. Costello, F.
Costello, K. Sheridan; S. Grimes, F. O’Loughlin; Adrian Flannery (0-1), A.
Golden (0-2), P. Malone; K. McTigue, T. Walkin (0-4, 3f), M. Keane. Subs:
H. Murphy for
McTigue; Alan Flannery for Malone.
Lahardane McHales: P. Crean; M. Marley, J.J. Leonard, R. McDermott; T.
Marley, A. McDermott, B. Rowland; D. Kelly, J. Gillespie; V. Cawley, J.
McDonnell, J. Rowland; D. Leonard (0-1), S. Blake (0-1), C. Rowland
(0-7,6f). Subs: G. Burke for Kelly.
Referee: P. Barrett (Belmullet).
