St. John's 1-09
Cushendall 2-18

A dreary Sunday evening in Corrigan Park was the setting for this hurling quarter final 1st leg match against Cushendall. And unfortunately for St. John's the home side's performance matched, in many respects, the weather itself.

St. John's senior hurlers

Cushendall certainly looked the brighter of the two sides right from the start as they notched up a 1-6 0-0 lead within 10 minutes of play. St. John's first score eventually came from a Gerard McFall free.

St. John's warming up before the game

County forward Brian McFall was introduced after 15 minutes in an attempt to spark more scores from the home side, however scores were proving extremely difficult to come by with St. John's only managing a single point more before the halftime whistle. Matters went from bad to worse in the second half as St. John's found themselves 20 points adrift at one stage.

The reason was simple - Cushendall's firepower was confident and spread throughout their forward and midfield lines whereas their St. John's counterparts were misfiring. Reminiscent of the recent Cork/Antrim game the outlook was as dark as the storm clouds overhead for St. John's.

Thankfully though St. John's hurlers provided their manager Liam Donnelly with some respite as they did improve and scores began to follow. Locky McCurdy pointed well after a saved Brian McFall 21 yard free was cleared out to him on the 45 yard line. Locky continued his good form after the Portaferry league match with a great display in left-half forward.

Liam Donnelly surveys the field .

He proved to be St. John's best forward, and indeed player, on the night with a battling display, winning a lot of ball and whipping it on into the full forward line. He went on to score a second point in the second half.

Ronan Heenan on top form for St. John's

Brian also scored a fine point from 45 yards out following a few quick slick passes which St. John's could have done with a lot more of. Ronan Heenan scored a superb point in the second half from centre-half back and was producing, in the process, his best performance of the season. He won a huge amount of ball at centre-half back and drove it well up the field at every opportunity, taking the pressure of his fellow defenders. Gerard McFall scored the goal of the match with 10 minutes remaining in the game as he solo'd the ball to the edge of the Cushendall square and rammed it into the back of the net.

St. John's managed to reduce the deficit to 12 points by the full time whistle 1-09 2-18.
In fairness to the Corrigan Park men the gap should have been much less (and this may have been the most frustrating part of the game for the Johnnies) but for a number of squandered goal and point opportunities in the second half.

It looks like an almost impossible task for the hurlers to bridge a 12 point gap against Cushendall in the 2nd leg this Sunday but, always up for a challenge and ever the underdog St. John's will travel up the Glens full of grit and determination. They have a chance to make up for a poor 1st leg performance, a chance to show that they are a better team than what was on display on Sunday. If each player goes out with the same spirit that the two oldest players on the team did on Sunday past then who knows?

Ronan and Locky showing the young lads how its done.

St. Johns: 1.Ciaran Cunningham 2. Conor Gannon 3. Anto Brennan 4. Chris Clarke 5. Liam Knocker 6. Ronan Heenan 7. Gerard Cunningham
8. Hugo 'Duncan' Kennedy 9.Colm McFall 10. Neil Reynolds 11. Micky O'Neill 12. Locky McCurdy 13. Simon McCrory 14. Gerard McFall
15. Stephen Thompson 16. Niall Grego 17. John Mead 18. Brian McFall 19. Colin Thompson 20. Brendan Moss
21. Packy Nolan 22. Kevin Rafferty 23. Neill Kelly
Substitutes: Brian McFall for Anto Brennan, John Mead for Colm McFall (50), Niall Grego for Hugo 'Duncan' Kennedy, Colin Thompson for Stephen Thompson

Manager: Liam Donnelly
Mentors: Fergal Collins, Brendan Mackin, Paul Collins, Brendan McQuillan, Michael Gannon