James Kelly, Naomh Bríds sharpshooter proved to be the difference between the two sides as he gave an exhibition of free taking in this Junior Hurling Championship group game at Páirc Mhic Ionnrachtaigh.
Naomh Bríd opened the scoring in the 2nd minute from a pointed free before Oskar Deevy brought the sides level with a nice finish follwing a cute handpass from Stephen McGivern. A further 2 points from frees, 1 from the left side of the pitch and the other right side edged Naomh Bríd in front with Chris Gallagher pointing a free from 20 meters to keep us in touch. Naomh Bríd extended their lead with a goal in the 8th minute and immediately added a point from the subsequent puck out when a high ball ball was fetched on the edge of the square and duly struck over the bar.
We fought back into the game when Anthony Rowntree flicked the sliotar to the net but it was short lived as a brace of Naomh Brid points, a free from a central position and the other a good finish on the run extended the Musgrave sides lead. However, Anthony Rowntree struck an excellent point while under pressure before the sliotar was scrambled to the Naomh Bríd net by CJ Sullivan and after 18 minutes the sides were level.
Both teams then traded points with Deaglan Mooney firing over on the run from the right side and Cormac Maguire on the run from the left. The Naomh Bríd response came from points from a free and a 65 and again the sides could not be separated. Naomh Bríd finished the half on the front foot with Kelly continuing his excellent free taking as he added a further 5 points to his tally to leave us trailing 2-5 to 1-13 at the break.
Naomh Bríd struck two early points on the restart (1f) while Anthony Rowntree got another point before a nice move culminated in Chris Gallagher cracking the sliotar to the back of the Naomh Bríd net to leave us a goal in arrears. However, Naomh Bríd out-battled us in a 10 minute spell tagging on 4 points (1f) to leave us with an uphill battle going into the latter stages of the game.
Two outstanding points from Deaglan Gallagher made some in-roads to the defecit and we reduced it further when Chris Gallagher nailed 2 points (1f) and it was down to a 3 point game. Naomh Bríd hit back with 2 consecutive points (1f) but we managed to get the defecit down to a goal with points from Jay Park and Colm McKee.
Unfortunately, the final whistle brought the game to an end and we had come out on the wrong end of proceedings, which now leaves us needing a huge effort in our final group game against the leaders Conn Mag Aoidh where we need to get something if we are to progress further in the competition.
Scorers: O Deevy 0-1, C Gallagher 1-3, A Rowntree 1-2, CJ Sullivan 1-0, D Mooney 0-3, C Maguire 0-1, J Park 0-1 and C McKee 0-1
