Thursday night we made the trip to Churchtown to play the hosts in round 2 of the div 3 hurling league and after a tough physical battle the teams ended all square which was probably a fair result as very little separated both teams all through. Churchtown started the stronger and led 0-2 to 0-0 after five minutes and with fifteen minutes gone they still held a 2 point lead 0-4 to 0-2 with our points coming from Paul Burke and an Eamonn Fitzgerald free.

From here on we started to get on top with some good scores coming from Mick O’Donovan, Dylan O’Callaghan and another free from Paul Burke. Our inside back line of Richard Burke, Brendan Hayes and Charlie McCarthy where doing very well at this stage to nullify the Churchtown attack and outside them Robert McHugh, Niall Barry and Jason Dwyer were playing some outstanding hurling clearing their lines and stopping many Churchtown attacks.

We were dealt a blow just on the stroke of half time when a high ball into our square wasn’t cleared and somehow the Churchtown forward found the net with a low shot to leave it 1-4 to 0-5 in favour of Churchtown. This set us back a bit but we knew that the game was their for the taking in the second half if we took our chances.

We got off to a great start and had the game level with points from our midfielders Vincent Burke and Kenneth Barry and these scores were soon followed by a very well taken free from Paul Burke after a foul on Dave Twomey. Churchtown leveled with a free of their own. We hit the front with three excellent points the first coming from the impressive Niall Barry and Mick O’Donovan followed with his second of the game from a close range effort before Eamonn Fitzgerald had a great point from an acute angle after great play by Jimmy Burke to give us a three point lead.

Churchtown kept in touch with two quick replies but we again surged up field and had the next two scores coming from Rob McHugh and another Paul Burke free. With only two minutes remaining both teams again had pointed efforts to see us leading by three points with full time approaching. Unfortunately for us and just like the end of the first half we conceded a very soft goal when a soft Churchtown free was lobbed into the square and somehow found its way to the net via a deflected shot. From the resulting puck out referee Denis Curtin blew for full time and both teams had a share of the points on offer.

Team: Stephen Donegan, Brendan Hayes, Richard Burke, Charlie McCarthy, Niall Barry(0-1), Robert McHugh(0-1), Jason Dwyer, Vincent Burke(0-1), Kenneth Barry(0-1), Dylan O’Callaghan(0-1), Dave Twomey, Eamonn Fitzgerald(0-3), Paul Burke(0-4), Mick O’Donovan(0-2), Jimmy Burke, Anthony Chalke.