On Wednesday 18 April the minor hurlers of Michael Cusack’s, of which Cumann Pheadaír Naofa are supplying players to, travelled up to play Portaferry in our third league match of the season. It has been an encouraging start to the league campaign with an impressive victory against Craobh Rua followed up by a strong display away to Bredagh. Wednesday saw another tough game and one which Michael Cusack’s could never get a real foothold in. Portaferry started brightly and lead 0.3 to no score after 5 minutes. Just as we were starting to get into the match with a free from Shamrocks player Conor Murphy, Portaferry cut through our defence for what could be considered a soft goal to concede. Numerous opportunities to tackle the incoming player were missed by Michael Cusack’s before the eventual shot took an awkward bounce taking it just past keeper Peter McCreesh. The remainder of the first half was fairly even. Portaferry were putting together some lovely passing moves but the Michael Cusack’s defence was standing up strong to the challenge being posed. The first half ended 1.5 to 0.3.
Michael Cusack’s started the second half brightly with a point from Eoin Maguire and a lovely score from Cian Lyons narrowing the deficit. However, Portaferry were not to be undone and they set about using the wind advantage with long diagonal ball into the full forward line yielding some dividends. A second fortuitous goal followed with the sliotar coming back off the upright and into the hands of the in rushing Portaferry full forward who calmly slotted the sliotar to the back of the net.
By this stage Cumann Pheadaír Naofa representative Thomas Magee was beginning to show for the sliotar around the half back line while Conan Kelly was having his strongest display of the season in the corner back position. In nets Peter McCreesh was ably assisting the full back line keep Portaferry at two goals with some fine saves and smart distribution of the ball.
Up front the remaining Cumann Pheadaír Naofa players were having a tough day at the office with Portaferry holding sway for large portions of the match.
Despite the defeat the management team of Ronan Sheehan, Damien McConville and Ronan McCaughey were happy with the effort shown and the determination of the players. Despite not playing to 100% of our potential the lads kept battling and didn’t let Portaferry pull too far out of sight with the match never really being over as a contest until the final whistle. Next up is O’Rahillys next Wednesday evening.
