JMS Services Intermediate Hurling Championship, Group B, Round 2
Final Score: Trim 1-21; St Patrick’s 1-16
📝 Kevin Coleman
Trim Intermediate hurlers continued a successful weekend, following their Senior counterparts victory on Thursday, with a hard earned, but well deserved, victory over St Patrick’s, Stamullen, at Drumree on Saturday evening.
Trim were smarter out of the blocks and converted the first three scores through Ciaran Joyce, Daniel Murray (f), and a long range effort by Conor McKeown. A feature of this game was the strike rate of Daniel Murray who ended up with a very impressive sixteen points of which twelve were from placed efforts.
St Pats also had their own sharpshooters and it was nip and tuck right through the opening half. Daniel Murray was well served by the awareness of his team mates and added on another brace, one from a placed effort and another with the combined assistance of Mark Murray and Conor McKeown. Even wing back Paddy Kennedy got in on the scoring act with a well-placed effort in the eighteenth minute.
Despite their overall control of the game, the sides were level on the twentieth minute when the Pats struck for an opportunist goal against an otherwise sound defence of full-back Cormac Doyle, ably assisted by his co-defenders Darragh Kennedy, Cian Walsh, Darragh Smith, Aaron O’Rourke, and Paddy Kennedy. Trim net minder Eoin O’Reilly was solid in behind and was instrumental in creating attack after attack with his accurate puck outs.
Daniel Murray, once again, restored his side’s advantage with a brace of pointed frees and Ben Gaffney was at the end of more good Trim teamwork to rifle home past a stranded opponent’s ‘keeper.
Half Time: Trim 1-11; St Patrick’s 1-09
The second half began exactly like the opening half with a couple of Daniel Murray pointed frees supplemented by a well-earned effort from the hard working Stephen Doyle.
Trim mid-field duo of Mark Murray and Shane Downes were winning plenty of ‘dirty ball’ and wing forwards Ben Gaffney, Conor McKeown, Conall Rogers, and substitute Colm McGrath were making their advantage tell against a stretched Pat’s defence.
By the end of the third quarter, Trim had eased into a comfortable lead but St Pat’s hit their purple patch with four unanswered point to reduce the deficit to two. It was now game on but Daniel Murray’s accuracy stretched his side’s advantage, once more, to four. As the game was ticking away to its inevitable conclusion, St Pat’s knew that only a late goal would give them a fighting chance of grinding out a result. A close in free in the first minute of injury time was brilliantly tipped over by Eoin O’Reilly to maintain a three-point advantage and the game was closed out with another Daniel Murray pointed free and a late assurance point from Conor McKeown.
Trim: Eoin O’Reilly, Darragh Kennedy, Cormac Doyle, Cian Walsh, Darragh Smith, Aaron O’Rourke, Paddy Kennedy (0-1), Mark Murray, Shane Downes, Ben Gaffney (1-0), Conor McKeown (0-2), Conall Rogers, Stephen Doyle (0-1), Ciaran Joyce (0-1), Daniel Murray (0-16, 12f)
Sub : Colm Mc Grath
