Milltown pull clear in final quarter
Ten point but many scores left behind by winners
Hot favourites, Milltown, duly recorded their win over Ballyteague, in the opening game of this season’s National Electrical Wholesalers IFC Group C, Round 1, at Cedral St Conleth’s Park, Newbridge, on Friday evening.
The final result, a ten point win for Milltown, gives a somewhat flattering result, not that the winners were not worthy winners, in fact if they had taken more of their chances the margin would and should have been a lot more, but a tendency of looking for goals from the word go, saw Ballyteague defend extremely effectively before themselves getting the opening goal of the game.
Milltown led 0-3 to 0-2 after five points eight minutes, the winners having missed a number of chances but were then hit with an excellent Jimmy Hyland goal that saw The Larks hit the front. However by half-time last season’s Kildare intermediate winners led 1-9 to 1-4.
Midway through the second half there were just three points separating the sides, 1-11 to 1-8 but a goal from Patrick Donohue, followed by four quick points and the Ballyteague effort came to a halt and while The Larks added four points, three from the impressive Jimmy Hyland, Miltown added a late goal from Hugh Hamilton to win on a final score line of Milltown 3-16 Ballyteague 1-12.
Scorers, Ballyteague, Hugh Hamilton 1-2, Patrick Donohue 1-1, Liam Kelly 1-1, Ben Curran 0-4, Conor Sheerin 0-2 (2 frees), Alan Dignam 0-3 (1 free), Ben Heuston 0-2, Colin O’Shea 0-1.
Milltown, Jimmy Hyland 1-5 (2 frees), , Brian McGrath 0-2 (two pointer free), Stephen Ennis 0-2,Glen Thorpe 0-2,Cian Loughlin 0-1.
MILLTOWN: Omar Dunne; Jamie Cross, Kevin Byrne, Cian Buckley; Hugh Hamilton, Colin O’Shea, Liam Kelly; Conor Sheerin, Joe Dunne; Ben Curran, Alan Dignam, Patrick Donohue; Calum Murphy, Ronan O’Shea, Ben Heuston. Subs: Sean Murphy for Calum Murphy (14 minutes); Niall Finnegan for COlin O'Shea (tem sub 45-50); Niall Finnegan for Ben Heuston (55 minutes).
BALLYTEAGUE: James Walsh; Daniel Grogan, Ryan Webb, Luke Jacob; Conor Somers, Pariac Hanely, Fionn Murphy; Gerry Melia, Thomas Callan; Cian Loughlin,, Brian McGrath, Glen Thorpe; Stephen Ennis, Cathal Hanifin, Jimmy Hyland. Subs: Aaron Walsh for Paraic Hanley (45 minutes); Barry Dempsey for Cian Loughlin (55 minutes).
REFEREE: Ken Doyle.