Round four of the East Senior Hurling League saw Ahane welcome Pallasgreen to Mackey Park on a fairly dull and misty Friday evening. In a game where tensions teetered on the edge and boiled over on a couple of occasions both teams took to the field and started strongly. It was one point a piece after two minutes with Ahane going into the lead due to a Ciaran O’Mara point all the way from half back. Pallasgreen got the next two scores and while we managed to get into scorable positions we put a good bit of ball wide. We levelled the game in the 9th minute with Ciaran Barry coming up from centre back to score another serious point. It was all Pallasgreen for the next few minutes as they got three unanswered points, two from frees and one from play. The final piece of play before the water break was a point from Andrew Shanahan, the scores stood as Ahane 0-04 Pallasgreen 0-06. Game started back after the water break, and it was Aaron Hackett that got us moving again with a great point facing away from goal. Adam O’Brien had a serious game in between the posts and made several unreal saves throughout the game to keep Pallasgreen goalless for the game. Pallasgreen got two more points before Ahane broke through with a Daniel Minehan driving run through the defence, he took on the shot, but it was saved only for Kevin Morrissey to capitalise on the rebound and smash it to the back of the net. Ciaran Barry added to the goal, as he got a point from the free. As we were nearing half time tempers rose which saw the referee dish out the first of the yellow cards in the game. Colum Carroll scored Ahane’s final point of the half and at half time the score was Ahane 1-07 Pallasgreen 0-10.

Second half got underway, and it was Colum again that got our first two scores of the half one from a free and a beauty of a score from play. Pallasgreen responded with a free of their own from deep in their own half which somehow managed to have the legs to go over the bar. Conor Morrissey got his name on the score sheet as he got on the end of a well worked ball and put it over the bar for another point. Pallasgreen got another point from a free before they were reduced to fourteen men due to their number ten getting a second yellow. Shane O’Grady got a super point to cement a phenomenal performance from him at wing back, he blocked ball, chased down players, hooked, tackled and scored. Our three half backs had serious games, and all got points, as well as putting in the hard yards back in defence and making life very difficult for the Pallasgreen half forwards. Ciaran O’Mara got his second point, and we were three points ahead. However, the next three scores were from Pallasgreen as they closed the gap. We couldn’t manage to get another score and the game ended in a draw. Ahane 1-12 Pallasgreen 0-15.

Team:

A. O’Brien; A. Carroll, E. Enright (C), E. O’Leary, S. O’Grady, C. Barry, C. O’Mara; D. Minehan, C. Carroll; A. Shanahan, M. O’Halloran, C. Morrissey, A. Hackett, K. Morrissey, E. Kennedy.

Substitutions:

W. O’Leary, M. Foley (1st ½ E. Enright Inj), D. McCarthy (1st ½ M. O’Halloran Inj), P. O’Grady (2nd ½ D. Minehan), S. Hackett (2nd ½ E. Kennedy Inj), L. O’Mara (2nd ½ C. Carroll) J. Barry, J. Enright