Bennettsbridge
turned in their finest performance of the year against seasoned opposition who
are usually at their best at this stage of the season. But on a lovely evening
in Tullaroan this Bridge side showed they are real contenders for honours again
this season. They withstood an early onslaught from the Johnstown men before
taking control and never letting up scoring some beautiful points along the
way. Then there were goals and 3 of them no less all scored by Michael Shiel
who made no mistake when the chances came his way. The last of these goals was
particularly well worked after sub Dylan won the race for a breaking ball and
after drawing in the defence he fed the ball to Michael who sent the net
bulging at the town end. The score was 4-3 points in favour of the Bridge when
the referee awarded a penalty to The Fenians but as on so many occasions in the
past Enda Cleere saved well to his left and from the resulting clearance a
point from Brian Lannon set the scoring wheels in motion. By half time the
score had run up to a comfortable 1-10 to 0-4(all of which came from frees. Our
forwards were working very hard and the defence kept on top of their men making
life difficult. The second half began with a run of 3 points for the Bridge but
it was a nasty knock on the hand to Brian Lannon after 6 minutes that was most
worrying for the management and shortly after this Brian was replaced by Dylan
Walsh. As the half neared the final 10 minutes the management had the luxury of
giving 3 more subs some playing time which will be important before the year is
out. The most important aspect of this game however was securing senior status
for next year and now the players have a game this coming weekend and who knows
how far they can go. One thing is for sure nobody will fancy meeting our lads who
know how to win titles after so many years in the doldrums. Our team lined out
: E Cleere, E Murphy, R Lennon, J Moran, E Morrissey(0-1), J Cleere, A Cleere(0-1),
D Wafer, K Blanchfield(0-5), W Murphy(0-1), B Lannon(0-2), N Cleere(0-8), M
Shiel(3-0), L Blanchfield(0-1), S Morrissey(0-2). Subs used D Walsh, C Wafer, K
Brennan(0-1), E Fitzgerald. |
Club News >