Club News

23/06/02 Gorts put up good fight but lacklustre Johnnies take win

Probably a match which most of the hurlers would rather forget, this was an average performance which could be summed up by the huge percentage of wides registered throughout the game.

There seemed to be a general lack of concentration about the players throughout the pitch, perhaps partly due to over-confidence at who they were playing, or to poor preparation for the match in the preceeding days, however the team was a mere shadow of its former self from earlier games.

Wide after wide was recorded in both halves resulting from frees and from open play when, on any other day, the St. John's forwards would have easily converted them. This continual stream of misses certainly seemed to give GortnaMona increased confidence as they began to press forward and put more and more scores over the St. John's bar.

Sensing a mini-upset the hurlers upped their game for the second half and closed out the game 2-10 to 1-9. On the plus side, subs Eamon Blaney and Gerard Hamilton acquitted themselves well when they were introduced, both scoring fine points at crucial stages of the game and Neil Reynolds, who had missed the previous couple of games, put in a strong solid performance in defence. Also the back line worked hard in the second half to halt the Gorts advance and prevent them from recording an unlikely win.

Paul Montgomery racked up his, now obligatory, tally of 2 goals and 5 points, but he, like the majority of the team, failed to raise his game above 2nd gear. However, a win is a win and after a series of successful matches in the Antrim Cup this recorded the first victory for St. John's in the Antrim All County Hurling League.

		St. John's
		C.Cunningham
N. Reynolds		C. Gannon	N. Kelly
C. Kelly		K. Rafferty	G. Clarke
		D. O'Hara B. McFall
L. McCurdy		R. Heenan	C. Thompson
B. Moss		P. Montgomery	S. Thompson
(Subs: E. Blaney for B. Moss, N. McCallin for L. McCurdy, G. Hamilton for S. Thompson, F. Collins for C. Thompson)