Result: 4 09 to 2 06
Minor C team shooting well – Limrick Layder Reports from somewhere in West Dublin!
BBSE 4 09 Castleknock 2 06
On a fine autumnal sunday morning all the male minor hurlers gathered at the clubhouse; the A’s were heading south to Cuala, the B’s were heading north to Portmarnock and the C’s appropriately enough heading ‘west’ – (where all the good cowboys hang out) to take on Castleknock in a shoot out!
We rounded up a good posse of players but ‘lost our leading forward’ in the car park (‘Long’ Jack Lambert was promoted to the B team ) ….after protracted negotiations we recruited an u16 player John Maguire (yet to be nicknamed) and 3 litres of freshly squeezed orange juice …surplus stock from the A panel. Undaunted we headed due west arriving to Porterstown in good time to prepare well for the shoot-out. Our new technical director (the old one ‘The Gav’ Duff got promoted last year to the B’s) Robert Lambert took the lads through their paces ….by the time he’d finished they were frothing at the mouth for the battle ahead….(old style training – none of your fancy-dan stuff with cones scattered around the pitch like confetti at a wedding)!
The ball was in and the game was on ….Sean ‘The Gazelle’ Lambert settled us with 2 early frees, then we scored a joint goal – claimed by 2 players, ‘Smiler’ Hanrahan and ‘The Politician’ O’Reilly. We were under constant pressure at the back but the full line of ‘Steady’ Barrett, ‘Thundering’ O’Neill and ‘Dynamo’ McGovern were holding out ….. just like the Daly gang at the OK Corral. Matthew ‘The Paw’ was as playing a blinder in goals! ‘Red’ Benjamin Hurley and the ‘Strapping Lad’ Corcoran were making good runs at the opposition and creating good space …we got another goal compliments of the ‘Runner’ Kinsella. By half time we were 6 points to the good. We refreshed ourselves with the orange belonging to the A’s – seemingly ‘Jesus’ McKenna likes a glass of juice at half time!
Castleknock scored a goal early in the 2nd half and things were looking dodgy but our captain the ‘Tiger’ Murray and his comrades in the half back line ‘Cool’ Dennehy and the ‘Turf Cutter’ Basquel started hurling ‘tough’ along with the ‘Dasher’ Bradshaw (on for the injured ‘Steady’) and the curfew was lifted. The Gazelle and Evan Rossiter struck over a few quick points before ‘Junior’ Lambert stole in for tidy goal. We got a disputed point, compliments of our umpire – the genial Jeremiah Corcoran. Next ‘The Paw’ came out of goal for a seventy and split the posts. We introduced new blood, the Seanachai MacPhaidin showed well and hit in a few nice balls, next on was the ‘Enforcer’ Duffy who straight away began to put manners on the opposition backs, followed by Sean Mahon who helped get us over the line. Late on the ‘Strapping Lad’ Corcoran went through for a goal. Dioma was next to be introduced but had to be withdrawn as we had reached our quota of 5 subs.
We finished up winning 4-9 to 2-6 – confirmed by Des – statistician and ‘the Paws’ grandfather.
p.s. thanks to all our supporters on the day and particularly to ‘Smilers’ father for washing the jerseys ….. and to all our those parents who haven’t yet washed the jerseys but may do so in the future! Rock on.