Junior Hurling – Kilruane MacDonaghs 0-15 Burgess 0-14

The Kilruane MacDonaghs junior hurling team secured a valuable brace of points when they had a one point home victory against Burgess. After a disappointing performance in the first round against Nenagh, the team showed a welcome return to form.

Ger Corcoran, who was exam tied for the first round, returned to goal and this freed Thomas Williams to operate at corner forward. Mick Cleary, Paddy Ryan and Alan Ryan, who is recovering from two broken fingers, were all unavailable. Freddie Williams was also ruled out with a hamstring injury but took his place on the bench. Selector Tom Killackey was out of the country on holidays so manager Joe Whelan enlisted the help of Joe Burns to patrol the line, along with himself and Ger Williams.

Burgess had the assistance of the wind in the first half but found scoring difficult as MacDonaghs played with great spirit all over the field. They hit the first three points before the impressive Brian O Meara got Kilruane off the mark with a pointed free. Thomas Williams, Brian O Meara from a free, and Jonathan Cahill hit three further points without reply to leave the score 0-4 to 0-3 in favour of MacDonaghs. Burgess were guilty of some poor shooting and allied to great defending by Kilruane they were unable to build up a good lead.

The Kilruane mentors had moved Thomas Williams to midfield after twenty minutes in a direct swop with Michael Reddan and this switch benefitted both players. Thomas got the score of the half when he landed a massive free from eighty metres into the wind. At the interval the scoreboard read 0-8 to 0-6 in favour of Burgess.

On the resumption, Thomas Williams pointed a 65 to reduce the deficit. Burgess replied with a point before Thomas Williams and Brian O Meara raised a pair of white flags to bring the sides level. However, Burgess tacked on three further points to regain the initiative. MacDonaghs couldn’t get their noses in front and it looked like they would need a goal in order to get something from the game. They continued to nibble at the Burgess lead and points from Jonathan Cahill, a couple from Brian O Meara and a massive strike from midfield by Thomas Williams left the sides all square at 0-13 each inside the last five minutes.

Burgess hit the front once again but MacDonaghs finished with a flourish and points from Michael Reddan and Brian O Meara, now operating at centre forward, gave them victory by the minimum of margins. This was a committed performance by the team and the victory keeps their hopes of a quarter final place very much alive. There were a number of outstanding performances and senior manager Alan Cunningham must have been impressed with the displays of corner back Pádraig Kelly and full forward Brian O Meara.

Another interested spectator was Seamus Darcy of Kyle who was home from ‘Big Apple ‘ on holidays. Seamus was on the 1985 junior team which defeated Toomevara in the North final and Cappawhite in the county final . MacDonaghs have two more games to play in the group against Moneygall and Silvermines.

Team: Ger Corcoran, Liam Gibson, Colin England, Pádraig Kelly, Kevin Ryan, Ruan Casey, Fergal England, Denis Cahill, Michael Reddan (0-1), Jonathan Cahill (0-2), Edmond Morkan, Shane Williams, Darren Killackey, Brian O Meara (0-7) and Thomas Williams (0-5).