On one of those rare evenings ,with the sun splitting the stones,we took on Drumree in the first round at a resplendent Kilmessan this evening at 7.30.There was a decent crowd present to witness the match and I imagine the crowd was boosted by the news that Dunderry would compete against Drumree at half time at under 8 and under 10 level in exhibition matches.
This gave me some pride as I had two sons involved with the adult team and a grandson Padraig,Finn's son involved at under eight level and thanks be to God I was still alive to witness all this.
Any feeling of exultation I had turned to apprehension when I saw how the team lined out and who we were missing.
We lined out as follows:-
Damian Bruton
Brendan Wright Davy Mac Cormack Conor Dempsey
Killian Minogue Ted Dowd Conor O Shea
Liam Dempsey Garrett Dooley
Davy Gilkinson Finn Stephens ( C) Johnny Moran
Luke Martyn Kit Harrington Conor (Bomber Farrell )
Davy (Sprog )Stephens ,our normal and good corner back and Thomas Doherty ,our goalie this long time were sidelined through injury. Two good men ,who I knew full well would be missed badly.And I wasn't gone on the positional changes either.Wright was playing at full forward until this,Conor Dempsey at number 5 and Bomber is clearly not suited to the corner.In addition Damian Bruton had not held a hurley in competition for 18 months.He is not short of courage however but it was expecting far too much to put a man so short of practise in such a vital position .I attach no blame whatsoever to him for what transpired.
Drumree are a ficely competitive outfit and Ted had coached them these last two years.One of their boys is involved at managerial level with us this year ,so you would imagine that no secrets would lie buried.( Our Drumree man had gone on holidays ).There is a fierce rivalry between the teams and no quarter was sought or given.
The warriors squared up for the throw in.In the blink of an eye Finn had registered a minor.But then my worst fears were realized,Not once ,not twice but thrice Drumree registered goals of egg yolk sort.And tagged on five points and a further decent goal before half time,Johnny Moran,having his best game ever for us scored another minor and Gilky scored another two to make the half time score 4-6 y top 0-4 for Drumree.
Everything they touched turned to gold and the little possession we got turned to lead.We were bewildered and out of sorts and the half time whistle couldn't,t come quick enough.The underage entertainment provided a mild distraction and Drumree were back out early to resume battle.Such was the delay with our boys coming out ithat I wondered what in the name of God and the name of the Gaelic Game was going on,Was there a row in the camp ?I don't know but when we did re emerge there was more of a pep in our step and a number of positional changes.Doc was in goals,Bomber and Garrett swapped positions and O Shea was at number 6,with Ted going to the wing.But could we pull back a 14 point deficit and more importantly restore some pride in the jersey.
Well we didn't lie down and with renewed determination started to whittle down the deficit with 5 consecutive poins to their 2.We needed a goal and we delivered ,but they pulled back another 2 points.We kept at it and .After Wright had been moved to the forwards and Bruton, Ryan and Feeney introduced we rattled in a goal from Gilky .And another and another ,both from Wright frees ,as far as I could see.Finn had started to play a Captain's part and run at them and this helped us to start goaling.One of his points clipped the cross bar and went over instead of under.Such is life.
All told we scored 3-6 to their 5 points in the second half ,at one stage coming within four points of them.But the gap was too big and we finished defiantly on a scoreline of 4-11 against our 3-10.A four point defeat but a hell of a lot better than the 14 point gap at half time.
And don't let anyone tell you that Drumree took their foot off the pedal.They did not.
Fair dues to our boys they fought to the bitter end and never gave up.
Our management will have learned much from this display.
We missed enough scorable frees to make a difference and we will have to work on this.Gilky scored a 0-5 from frees and 1-1 from play,Moran 0-1 ,Finn 0-2,Bomber 0-1 and Wright 2-0 from frees..Killian Minogue suffered a head or neck injury.We hope he will be all right.
We will have to resume winning ways quam cellerime.
Afterwards I met Mairead Delaney whose son was playing at number 8 for Drumree.I am unsure what position she holds in the County Board but can assure that she is far from a token woman and earned her position by her qualities as a person and not because of the shape of her gonads.
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