U16 Football:
After a great display of heart and determination from all 19 players, Bruff emerged victorious in last Monday’s U16 Football County Shield final versus Cappamore.
When these two teams met in Bruff in an earlier round, in a 9 goal game, Cappamore won by 3, so we knew travelling to Rathkeale that it wasn’t going to be easy.
However, with Finn Clancy between the posts, we were already on a winner. While in front of him Tony O’Connell had a simple job to do; to mark Cappamore’s best forward. From the outset, the opposition piled on the pressure and quickly notched up a two point lead, but it was then that the full back line took over. Tony started to beat his man for every ball., while on either side of him, Scott Bevan and Diarmuid Dennehy did likewise and confidently carried the ball forward. In front of them, time and again, Killian Bennett raced up the right wing linking up with Rory Butler and Jamie Ahern in the half forward line while Paudie Mulcahy did that same through the middle and on the left, ably abetted by Lee Madden. However, 15 minutes in, one of these moves up the right broke down, and a few players on the overlap led to a Cappamore goal for which Finn had no chance. A setback yes, but one that spurred on the boys. Our midfield pairing of Darragh O’Brien and Gearoid O’Leary started to dominate, and Bruff captain Ross O’Brien-May redoubled his efforts on the left linking up regularly with Rory Coleman. But still we couldn’t buy a score. Time and again, our frees and kicks from play dropped just wide or into the goalie’s hands. We did get the ball into our full forward line, with Jack Gunning winning and offloading great ball, but it took a ground kick from Craig Finn and a couple of frees to keep us within two points at half time. At half time, Craig was given a simple message; grab the ball, round his man, and try to break the crossbar. And boy did he give it a try. But only after he had been shown the way by one of the two half time subs (Josh Keating and Patrick Finn had come in as corner forwards). Just after the throw in, a long ball in from midfield found Josh a yard off his man, and after a quick step inside he curled one over that the Gooch would be proud of. After that, it was all Bruff. Almost immediately, Craig won a ball 30 yards out, took two steps and crashed it to the roof of the net, giving the goalie no chance. With Paudie totally dominant at centre back, Darragh winning every high ball in the middle, and Jamie sweeping up around them, Gearoid was free to move forward where he obliged with two cracking goals. Likewise Craig, with the help of Patrick, Rory and Josh notched up a further 2-1, and Josh another great point. In fact, Cappamore rarely passed the Bruff half way line in the second half, but when they did, Finn had his backs well in control. Midway through that final 30 minutes, a long ball into the 13 position looked dangerous, but Evan O’Neill got a hand in to flick it away, and link up with Paudie Mulcahy danger averted. Hard to decide on which was the goal of the game, but the last one from Ross is certainly up there. A quick interchange between Killian and Oisin Mulqueen, and the ball made its way up to Ross who soloed in from the right, sold two dummies, and found the roof of the net from a tight angle to bring his personal tally to 1-5. All in all, a great display, which pleased the management team of John Riordan, Ger Murnane and Donal Curran. Bruff ran out easy winners in the finish, on a scoreline of 6-9 to 1-4. Well done lads.
Junior Hurling:
The junior hurlers played Fedamore last Saturday in the County semi final. The team was John A Moran, Aidan Moloney, Gregory Dempsey, Maurice Hehir, Timothy McSweeney, Mike Weekes, Pat O’ Neill, Niall Brosnan, Tony Burke, Paddy O’ Leary (Captain), Niall O’ Riordan, Sean O’ Riordan, Barry Manton, John Cooke, Patryk Lademann, Fran O’ Dwyer, Ian Gardiner, Tony Clancy, Cian Moloney, Roger Mulqueen, Liam Buckley and George Clancy. Two subs were used. The scorers were Paddy O’ Leary (0-11, 0-8F), Barry Manton (1-1), John Cooke (0-1), Niall O’ Riordan (0-1) and Sean O’ Riordan (0-1). The final score was Bruff 1-15 Fedamore 1-10. We now face Mungret in the County final, more details to follow.