Following championship exit to Cushendall on Sunday St. John's hurlers faced the daunting prospect of reigning Ulster Champions Dunloy's visit to Corrigan. With St. Johns having an undefeated record thus far at home a large step-up in performance was needed from the one produced on Sunday. St. John's went on to produce a great battling performance that rocked Dunloy, who trailed for three quarters of the game, only to be beaten by one goal at the end.

St. John's senior hurlers

With Liam Donnelly being forced to shuffle his deck of players, several players were brought back into the team and others found themselves in different positions. St. John's for once started off brightly and caught Dunloy cold. With a flurry of points coming from the St. John's forwards to build up a 0-4 to 0-1 lead and they went on to increase this to 0-7 to 0-4 just before the half-time break. St. John's seemed to be playing with more purpose and desire, with the forwards picking of some nice scores in wet conditions, with Niall Grego, Gerard Mc Fall and Paul Montgomery being the pick of the St. John's forwards in the first half exchanges, with Colly Thompson winning a lot of ball and leading Gary O' Kane on a tour of Corrigan Park. Allied to this the defence held up well to a lot of pressure from the likes of Greg O' Kane, Ally Elliot and Liam Richmond. Mickey O' Neill marshalled his troops well (in the absence of Ronan Heenan), ably assisted by Liam Knocker and Chris Clarke.

The second half was to be another great half of hurling with both sides throwing caution to the wind and really going at the game. Dunloy came out in the second half and picked of some early scores and St. John's responded through Grego again, who was proving to be a real handful for the Dunloy rearguard, to open up a three point gap. Points followed for Dunloy through an O' Kane free and two from midfielder Michael Mc Clements. With the score 0-12 to 0-10 in favour of the Johnnies, Dunloy now showed some experience and were able to put some great movements together one after the other to bring the scores level 0-12 to 0-12 going into the middle of the half.

Diaster then struck for St. John's when a speculative shot from 70 yards went towards Ciaran Cunningham's goal, with no apparent danger he tried to control in on his hurl, but it slipped of out to the waiting Ally Elliot who duly dispatched it to the net. With Dunloy now gaining the lead they went onto claim another goal from Liam Richmond to leave the score 2-13 0-12 in their favour. St. John's then showed a bit of much needed spirit and struck over some quick fire points from Gerard Mc Fall and Niall Grego again to leave the score 2-13 to 0-15 in Dunloy's favour. Just as St. John's had been handed a life line by the last few scores, disaster struck as Elliot again found the net in the last ten minutes to kill off the Johnnies challenge. However, on the next puck out St. John's won a sideline ball thirty yards from the Dunloy goal, Stephen Thompson sent a great 'cut' towards the Dunloy goal that ended up in the net after a mistake by Gareth Magee in the Dunloy goal. Both sides exchanged points and these were to be the last scores of the game leaving it 3-14 to 1-17 in favour of Dunloy.

Although there are no league points for a defeat, the performance that St. John's produced was a lot better than the championship may have suggested. There were several good performances on the night coming from the likes of Mickey O' Neill, Liam Knocker and Chris Clarke in defence, along with Simon Mc Crory in midfield and a particularly impressive Niall Grego in attack. Both sides had treated the supporters to an excellent game of hurling that was well refereed and played in a great spirit.

St. Johns: 1. C. Cunningham 2. C. Gannon 3. A. Brennan 4. C. Clarke 5. N. Mc Callin 6. M. O' Neill 7. L. Knocker 8. Simon Mc Crory 9. B. Mc Fall 10. S. Thompson 11. C. Thompson 12. G. Mc Fall 13. Niall Grego 14. N. Reynolds 15. P. Montgomery
Substitutes: J. Meade for N. Reynolds,N. Kelly for C. Gannon

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