After defeat to Kilcoo last week the Cumann Pheadair Naofa Minors knew that only a win against Baile An Locha would give them a chance to progress to the 1/4 final.
The game started as a cagey affair with both teams knowing the importance of a win and Baile An Locha opened the scoring with two fine points! The young blues sprung to life when Kohree Hourican ran through to finish with the ball in the net! The blues kicked on with Ronan Daly & Cian McLoughlin adding points on before goals from Cian and Eoghan Byrne put the point in a commanding lead of 9 points after 15 mins. Baile An Locha dug deep and piled the pressure on to the Blues scoring 2-3 unanswered to claw the game back to a draw and all to play for in second half.
Half Time Score 3-4 to 2-7
The second half saw the blues hit the net in their first attack from Eoghan Byrne which he quickly followed with another. The two teams went all out trading scores and the game tied half way through the half after more goals from Kohree and Ronan as well as a Baile An Locha penalty! CPN stretched the lead again with points from Aaron McBurney and Eoghan Byrne and Ruairi McCormack finding the net once again! Tension was building and Baile An Locha took advantage of poor defending to reduce deficit to just two going into Injury time. However Eoghan Byrne finished the game off with his forth goal of the evening to secure a 5 point victory. A fantastic attacking game for the neutral but stressful for the Blues management and supporters.
Final score 9-6 to 5-13
The Young Blues now wait on results this coming Tuesday to find out if the progress to the next round.
