Club News

04/08/02 Hurlers produce gutsy performance but lose to Loughuile at home

When these two teams met each other last season two very different results were produced. Away St. John's suffered a heavy defeat, however at home St. John's produced a turnaround and exacted a heavy win over Loughuile. Perhaps predictably this time around the affair was a lot closer but, unfortunately Loughuile managed to take home the spoils.

The best day of the summer, St. John's hurlers and their supporters couldn't have wanted better conditions. The match began similarly to the Intermediate game on Friday night with Loughuile gettting a couple of early scores on the board. Brian McFall came through with a pointed free and the game followed a familiar pattern - Loughuile getting a few points at a time and St. John's keeping in contention by scoring the odd point.

In the defense few could be faulted for their efforts, Gareth Clarke doing exceptionally well to stifle the on-form Liam Watson (Antrim's top scorer, hot off the All-Ireland trail) and perhaps most encouragingly Mickey O'Neill (back after a lengthy injury) displayed his superb defensive qualities and talents in the full back position.

By and large St. John's battled well all over the pitch, putting themselves about and making things extremely difficult for Loughuile to get into any kind of flow. Indeed the majority of possession would have been won by St. John's throughout the first half - it was just getting the scores which Loughuile seem to produce with a lot more ease.

Just as St. John's began to make some headway against their opponents a soft goal was conceded when a Loughuile forward got the space to take a shot from 20 yards out and it came off the St. John's keeper's stick into the back of the net. No doubt Ciaran Cunningham will be kicking himself over that one given his calibre as a keeper and St. John's No.1.

However, far from dropping their heads the hurlers battled on and they went in at half time only a few points behind. Also a few rash and heavy challenges from Loughuile yielded a few bookings against them and, in one horrendous challenge on Mickey O'Neill, a red card.

After the first half Neil Kelly made way for Fergal Collins as St. John's tried to press home their advantage over the 14-strong Loughuile team. It certainly seemed to do the trick as much of his Fergal's efforts in full forward produced the goal for St. John's which brought them very close to Loughuile. However slack defending at the other end saw Loughuile overlapping St. John's, despite being one man down, and putting the ball past the keeper for a second time.

Ronan Heenan displayed much leadership and determination in the second half and produced his best match to date this season as he made a number of crucial catchs in the middle of the field to keep St. John's in possession and also in the hunt. Neil Reynolds also showed his fighting spirit and desire to play when he was received a nasty head injury early in the second half, needed a number of staples (some set of lungs on him too!) and finished the match playing well to the very end.

Again St. John's battled on and cut the deficit to a couple of points towards the end of the game, however Loughuile managed to score another goal which sealed the game. It was an exciting match to watch and whilst the result was disappointing the team's fighting spirit displayed was impressive and the fact that the team never stopped throughout the match, battling tirelessly until the last whistle was extremely encouraging.

An improvement on the midweek Cushendall game and a step in the right direction coming up to championship.

 

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