Club News

31/07/02 Johnnies beaten away to Cushendall
(Guest reporter Gareth Clarke)

Whilst missing key senior players (Brain McFall, Mickey O'Neil, Hugh Kennedy and Conor Gannon) St. Johns started brightest by scoring two early goals which involved delivery from Gareth Clarke into the path of Gerardo Hamilton to score both.

An upset was on the cards it seemed until the Cushendall men rallied and fired over a few unanwsered points which left an understrength Johnnies side chasing shadows at times!!

However the younger members of the line-up seemed to look the more at home playing with the north antrim side than older members of the team. Conal Kelly, Neil Kelly, Neil Reynolds all battled hard in the first and second half to spoil the skillful Cushendall forwards of the likes of the Delargy brothers. Chris Clarke seemed to be back to his best, hurling extremely well and dominating the left corner of the pitch.

The match was a tight one the whole way throughout and the scoreline did not reflect the vast majority of the Johnnies individual performances. young Gerardo Hamiliton racked up an impressive 2-4 to his name as he gave his marker the run around for most of the game. Gareth Clarke playing at centre half forward was marking County Antrim star Karl McKeegan and lined him well, supplying young Hamiliton with a lot of the ball.

However the match finished up 4-11 to 2-7 and all in all the hurlers have work to do before championship and it starts on Sunday at Corrigan park (7pm) when they play Loughuile.

 

 

		St. John's
		C.Cunningham
N. Kelly		N. Reynolds	C. Clarke
C. Kelly		K. Rafferty	F. Collins
		D. O'Hara R. Heenan
S.Thompson		G. Clarke	E. Blaney
G. Hamilton		P. Montgomery	C. McCaffery
(Subs: C. Thompson for F. Collins, A. Press for C. McCaffery)