By: Kevin Corrigan
Tullamore Court Hotel Senior “B” Football Championship Round
Daingean 4-17
Tubber 0-11
With a win over a fancied Tullamore side under their belt from the first round, Daingean have started very well and are now odds on favourites to take one of the four semi-final berths on offer from this six team championship.
This was very comfortable for them with Tubber badly stuck for numbers and showing some of the hallmarks of a club in bother. Daingean had a big panel of 32 named, Tubber had just 19 togged out with emigration, injuries and other absentees all contributing to this – the losers were like the walking wounded in ways and did well to manage 11 points on the evening with Daingean completely dominant apart from a spell before half time.
County hurler Donal Shirley was watching on as he recovers from a cruciate injury while former county football stalwart, Ciaran McManus was among the unavailable players here – 50 year old McManus came on as a sub in their opening round loss to Ballinagar.
With few players emerging out of underage ranks at the moment, Tubber could not sustain these losses and on the basis of their opening two games, they are prime relegation contenders – they will fight with everything they have to avoid that but a step back may not be the worse thing for them at the moment.
Credit to Tubber who dug deep here after a dreadful opening quarter when Daingean struck for 1-9 without reply and could very easily have ran in another couple of goals.
Cormac Whittle got them going with an instant two pointer and Odhran Connolly punched their goal in the fifth minute as Daingean opened them up with remarkable and concerning ease.
Tubber did well to only concede one point in the second quarter as Daingean led by 1-10 to 0-6 at half time. Daingean stopped playing and became quite sloppy, over carrying the ball on a couple of occasions and also being punished for a throw ball by county star Shane Tierney.
It would be stretching things to suggest that Tubber were back in it at half time. They weren’t and everyone at the venue knew at half time that Daingean’s winning margin would be a substantial one but Tubber showed good spirit in that second quarter with former county player Bernard Allen primarily responsible for them arresting the decline.
Allen got five of their six first half points, three of them from play, he oozed class and Daingean were not one bit comfortable any time the ball went in his vicinity.
It was obvious, however, that Allen would be unable to win it on his own and the second half was a bit of a non event. Daingean outscored them by 4-7 to 0-5 and had the points wrapped up by the 42nd minute when Shane Tierney’s goal put them 2-14 to 0-9 ahead. It all drifted out very harmlessly from here with Cormac Whittle and Aaron Longworth adding to their goals tally.
If anything, it was nearly too easy for Daingean and in a one sided game like this, bad habits could very easilyy sneak in. They certainly did in the second quarter but overall manager Barry Weldon will be very pleased with most of what he saw and the efficient way in which Daingean controlled the game for the vast majority of the evening.
MATCH ANALYSIS
THE SCORERS
Daingean: Shane Tierney 1-5 (2f), Cormac Whittle 1-3 (1 x 2p), Odhran Connolly 1-2, Aaron Longworth 1-0, Aran Byrne and Jamie Hayes (1f) 0-2 each, Ryan Conway, Charlie Burns, Shane Marsden 0-1 each.
Tubber: Bernard Allen 0-8 (5f), Padraig McLoughlin, Ciaran McGuinness, Colm Donnellan 0-1 each.
THE TEAMS
DAINGEAN: Conan Curley; Cathal McKnight, Ryan Conway, Casey Evans; Steven Joyce, Adam Bolger, Cormac Whittle; Sam Wright, Scott Milne; Charlie Burns, Aran Byrne, Cathal Ryan; Shane Marsden, Odhran Connolly, Shane Tierney. Subs – Aaron Longworth for Ryan (48m), Jamie Hayes for Marsden (52m), Finn McGuinness for Connolly (53m).
TUBBER: James Lamgan;’ David Fallon, Nigel Farrell, Hugh Murphy; Ciaran Allen, Adam Fox;, Padraig McLoughlin; Enda McLoughlin, Ciaran Kinahan; Eoin Murphy, Sean Farrell, Ciaran McGuinness; Patrick Farrell, Bernard Allen, Colm Donnellan. Subs – Ronan Farrell for Patrick Farrell, inj. (29m), Pauric Robbins for Donnellan (33m), Ciaran Murphy for Sean Farrell (47m).
Referee – Chris Dwyer, Clara.
STATISTICS
Wides: Daingean – 14 (5 in first half); Tubber – 6 (2 in first half).
Yellow cards: Daingean – 1 (Odhran Connolly); Tubber – 2 (Nigel Farrell, Ciaran Allen).
Black cards: 0
Red cards: 0
By Offaly Secretary Fri 17th Jul
