This article is from page 99 of the 2009-05-05 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 99 JPG
SHANNON Gaels were pointless going into this Monday afternoon encounter – an hour’s football later and they were clinging to the hope of a Houdini-like escape from a relega- tion that seemed inevitable.
All thanks to this convincing eight- point victory over an Eire Og team that were lamentable on the day – the concession of three second half goals putting them back into the relegation mire with only one game remaining.
It wasn’t supposed to be like this for the Townies. Fresh from their morale boosting win over St Joseph’s Miltown the previous Saturday week they were confidently expected to turn over a Gaels team had had lost their opening five games.
Not to be thanks to a second half in which the Josie O’Shea managed side outscored their opponents by 3-3 to O-3 to turn a one-point deficit into a convincing eight point win.
There was nothing between them in the first half – early on they swapped point for point, with Brian Fitzpatrick and Stephen Hickey finding the range for the Townes, while Brian O’Shea, David Neylon, John Paul O’ Neill and Michael O’Donoghue were on the mark for the Gaels.
It was Eire Og who carved out an interval lead though, thanks to David Russell’s goal in the 24th minute. Russell burst forward with convic- tion from midfield and drove the ball beyond Michael O’Shea in the Gaels goal.
However, it was the Gaels’ goals
that turned this game on its head. The first came three minutes into the second half when David Neylon pun- ished poor Eire Og defending when rifling past Shane O’Connell – the Gaels never looked back while Eire
Og slowly capitulated to the fourth defeat from six outings.
Neylon struck again in the 45th minute, this time field a long delivery from Noel Kennedy, before turning and thumping an unstoppable drive
past the hapless O’Connell, while the final nail was driven into the Town- ies’ coffin with eight minutes to go when John Paul O’Neill intercepted a ball coming out of the Eire Og de- fence and put Declan Power through
for another soft goal.
All the Townies could muster in the second half were three points, a situation that puts them on the brink of dropping out of Cusack Cup foot- ball for the first time since being promoted to the top flight of league football in the county thanks to their Banner Cup final success, ironically over Shannon Gaels way back in Kildysart in 1993.
With high flying Doonbeg com- ing to Eire Og for the final round of the Cusack Cup in three weeks time, these are tough times for football in the county capital.