Ahane 2-22 Kildimo/Pallaskenry 2-16 in Cappamore
Bitterly disappointing to lose last night. We were unable to execute whatever plan we had. No complaints from me, Ahane were the better side and held the lead for most of the game. Thatâs not to say that we didnât have chances (I think both sides had 30 shots on goal, they were just a lot more accurate) but probably not a true reflection of the game as they did always have the lead and were able to sit in at the end and were happy to let us point away, as long as they didnât concede a goal.
And we couldnât really have got a much better start. First ball into Kyle, caught it over Dan, ran through on goal, dragged to ground and Shaun Barry buried the penalty. But, from then on, we couldnât get enough good ball to Kyle. Whereas Ahane were able to feed Tom an awful lot more. I thought Tony McCarthy did as well as anyone could on him, he won a fair few 50/50s but Tom is irrepressible tbh. An unbelievable performance from him, yet again.
Not that it was a one-man show, Dan Minehan did a lot of damage in the first half in particular and Ronan Fox took his goal really well. But everything went through Tom, they made hay with the wind at their back, they were able to land puckouts almost on our '21 and the disappointing thing was they beat us on winning that dirty ball. There were a lot of rucks and the like all over the pitch and they horsed us out of it. And thatâs not good. Another flat performance in the first game of the season, like Mungret last year and in 2020, and this one could prove to be costly. We didnât reach our true levels, a lot of players played within themselves; the difference in the intensity & work rate we brought yesterday versus what we brought against Doon last year was huge. Maybe the prep in the lead-up wasnât ideal, but canât be looking for excuses either, we werenât good enough on the day. And in fairness to Ahane, they brought that work rate and a bit of experience to see the game out. Theyâve done this before, last few years, theyâve dug out this win and itâs a big ask of us now.
To be fair, we were a lot better in the second half, Darren OâConnell in particular brought the fight to them, scored 0-2 and set up another 0-6 directly; Jack OâKeeffe was really good and got on a load of ball. Kyle was always a threat and looked the most likely to get a goal but he just didnât get enough ball and when he came out, we were blunt inside.
Ahane seemed to get their scores a lot easier, we had to work a lot harder to get scores, which is never a good sign. And pretty much everything they hit went over the bar where we were not efficient at all.
Mike Sexton did well as ref to be fair to him, let the game flow and there were a lot of big hits from both sides.
Disappointing, but weâve four matches left and weâre not gone yet.
Ahane 2-22
Tom Morrissey 0-12 (0-7 frees)
Dan Minehan 1-3
Ronan Fox 1-2
Mark Donnellan 0-2
Paddy Morrissey 0-1
Colum Carroll 0-1
Jack Butler 0-1
Kildimo/Pallaskenry 2-16
Shaun Barry 1-8 (1-0 penalty, 0-7 frees)
Barry OâConnell 1-0
Darren OâConnell 0-2
Cathal Downes 0-1
Kyle Hayes 0-1
Jack OâKeeffe 0-1
Liam Griffin 0-1
Peter Nash 0-1
Conor McMahon 0-1
