The Bennettsbridge Club are Leinster Junior Hurling Champions after a comprehensive victory in O Connor Park in Tullamore last Saturday. Going into this game the team had been in a rich vein of form having won 2 earlier rounds against Meath and Wexford opposition with large margins to spare. However nobody expected the margin to be as great as it was against an Offaly side who had themselves won their previous games with large margins. The Bridge boys hit the ground running and very quickly took control of the game and never gave the opposition a hope of getting a run on them. After giving the Shamrocks an early free which was converted by their only scorer on the day the lads responded with pointed frees from Nicky Cleere and Hugh O’Neill from play. After 20 minutes the Bridge led by 7pts to 1 with all the Bridge scores coming from Hugh and Nicky.On 22minutes the Bridge were awarded a free after a heavy challenge on Nicky Cleere .Brian Lannon took over free taking duties and made no mistake. On the 26^th minute a shot blocked by the Shamrocks goalie was batted to the net by Brian Lannon. A further point from Nicky was the last score of the half but it left the Bridge in a commanding position on a scoreline of 1-10 to a single point. The scores continued to flow in the second half with 6 more players getting in on the scoring act. For the Shamrocks it was a dismal day but that was in the main due to the approach of the Bridge team who have kept their hunger for success going. Great credit have to go to the management team of Christy Walsh, Tim Drea, Tommy Lennon and Mick Walsh who have kept the lads grounded and leave no stone unturned in their preparation. The support on the day again was tremendous with 3 busses and lots of cars traveling on the day and this has been a feature for every game this year. It means so much to the panel to have that support behind them and lets hope the New Year will bring more success with the All Ireland semi-final coming up on January 25^th against Galway club Annadown.

The team was E Cleere, S Wemyss, R Lennon, J Moran, J Cleere, E Morrissey, A Cleere 0-1, D Wafer 0-1, K Blanchfield, C Wafer 0-1, S Morrissey 0-1, N Cleere 0-7 (5 frees), H O’Neill 0-3 B Lannon 1-2 (0-1 free), L Blanchfield. Subs used M Shiel 0-1, W Murphy 0-3 (2 frees), P O’Neill, S Nolan, D Walsh.

Next Sunday sees the under 21 team out against James Stephens in a very tough tie in the Northern Q Final . Lets hope they keep the run of success going and in doing so make the winter a very short one in the parish. We hope to see a large turn out again and we can be assured the team and their management will not go down without a major fight.