Glenflesk, with the aid of the strong breeze, opened the scoring in the 2nd minute when Cian Horan raised a white flag; we responded with two pointed frees from Darragh O’Connor before half back Michael Mullane pointed to level matters in the 7th minute. 

 

Glenflesk were not to score again until the final act of the half and amazingly when Ian Roche pointed from a close in free, they were only one point adrift, 0-04 to 0-03.

 

That we were not comfortably ahead at this juncture was due to our profligacy in front of goal which allowed Glenflesk stay in the game. Despite dominating proceedings and creating 3 good goal chances we failed to capitalise, and the worry was that these misses could come back to haunt us.

 

David and Tom controlled proceedings in the middle, Jake marshalled our defence superbly ably assisted by the outstanding Daniel Bowler and an equally impressive Ben Hanafin; our half forward line worked tirelessly with Tomás Kennedy and Shane McElligott hungry for every ball and Barry John was linking play splendidly. 

 

Tommy was winning possession at will and plying his corner men with plenty of opportunities, but it was one of those nights when the ball would not go in the net - even a penalty awarded after Conor Hayes was upended in the square was saved when David’s effort was parried by the keeper Eoin Moynihan, who it must be said, was outstanding in this period.

 

The result was that we only added another two points to Darragh’s opening brace with Darragh again on target followed by our only score from play from Shane McElligott.

 

The second half resumed with Donagh Buckley on in place of Sam Pituch and Gearóid Savage replacing Barry John who tweaked a hamstring.

 

Glenflesk attacked from the throw in and found the net in the first minute when corner forward Tommy Bowler slipped in behind the defence and he gave báideior Rob no chance with a neat finish to the corner.

 

This setback elicited a quick riposte however with points from Darragh (2), Conor, Ben, and Gazza before Glenflesk struck back to leave just one point between the sides, 0-09 to 1-05 with ten minutes gone.

 

We continued to take the game to the East Kerry side applying a lot of pressure and Daniel Bowler overlapping on the left struck a sweet left footed effort to restore our two-point advantage again. 

 

Darragh again from a free plus a long-range effort from David had us four to the good but Glenflesk were not going away though, and with Dan O’Brien now playing further up field they came forward at every opportunity - again they raised white flags but we were not to be denied and with time running out we closed out the scoring with lovely efforts from play from Conor and Tommy. 

 

In summary, our lack of clinical finishing made this game closer than it should have been, but we were not discouraged by our missed chances and instead drew on all our reserves of a never say die attitude and a relentless work ethic to achieve a precious two points which will see us into our final game with Ballymac with a fighting chance of avoiding relegation. 

 

Team: Rob O’Connor, Darragh McElligott, Ross O’Callaghan, Sam Pituch, Ben Hanafin, Jake Foley, Daniel Bowler, David Moran, Tom Hoare, Tomás Kennedy, BJ Keane, Shane McElligott, Darragh O’Connor, Tommy Walsh, Conor Hayes.

 

Subs: Donagh Buckley, Gearóid Savage, Ryan Carroll.