Cumann Pheadaír Naofa 3-14
Ballycran 3-9
After Saturday night’s comfortable win Warrenpoint now sit second in the league. This was a very impressive win last night and was a great moral booster for Sean, Tom & Liam’s charges. They’ve trained hard all year and places on this team are not given up easy and it showed right from the start of last night’s encounter at Páirc Liam Uí Ir. Two dead ball strikes from John O’Kane and a Tomas Magill point from just outside the D got the home side off to a good start, Ballycran found the net in the eleventh minute when Ben Arthurs thunderous shot beat Anthony O’Brien to see Ballycran take a two-point lead. But with eighteen minutes on the clock O’Kane fired home a brilliant effort, again from a free, from 30metres out. The Blues defensive unit commanded the play for the remainder of the half with Mattie Teague, Fergal Murphy & Tom Daly all putting in superb performances, upfront the ageless Ali Higgins was causing extreme panic under the high ball with some outstanding examples of high fielding under pressure. James O’Hare chipped in with four well taken points from out in the half forward line and with the pace of Niall McParland in the corner, Cumann Pheadaír Naofa had several scoring options to choose from.
The start of the second half saw a flurry of early goals, two from Ballycran, with Brendan Hughes & Callum Bell closing the gap to a single point, after Higgins had plucked a high dropping sliotar from the sky, spun around and lashed to the net to extend the blues advantage to seven points. Warrenpoint kept the tempo of the game up and over the next ten minutes added another five points through McParland, O’Hare (twice), O’Kane and a fine effort from midfielder Tiernan Murphy after a surging run from midfield. Ballycran always looked dangerous when on the attack, but the resolve of the home team saw them limit Ballycran to just four points in the closing quarter of the game. The game was effectively sealed when McParland slammed the sliotar home from close range to see out an impressive five-point win.
Next week the blues travel to Cherryvale to take on Bredagh in what will be a tough encounter for the south Down side. Warrenpoint Scorers: John O’Kane 1-3, Niall McParland 1-2, James O’Hare 0-4, Ali Higgins 1-1, Tomas Magill 0-3, Tiernan Murphy 0-1.
