Shanballymore 1-17 Newtown 1-8.

We had an outstanding win last Saturday evening against Newtownshandrum in the semifinal of the Cavanaghs of Fermoy hurling league and now go on to contest our first Div 1 league final in nearly 20 years. This win showed that the team are making great progress in junior A hurling and to quality for the final is a great achievement. Newtown were one of the teams to best us in the league earlier in the year and after coming close on many occasions to beating them we finally got over the line last Saturday.

The Ballyhea pitch was in perfect condition for the game and Newtown played with the strong breeze in the first half. We were well up for the match and right from the off we got on top and had the first two points before Newtown got their first point after 5 mins. The strong breeze made shooting difficult and in the first half Newtown were off target at least ten times. Our back line were superb throughout the game and kept tabs on a very good Newtown forward unit.

We led at half time by four points 0-9 to 0-5 and early in the second half we stretched our lead to six points with some well taken scores from our forwards. Newtown never gave up and pegged us back midway through the second half with a very well worked goal and this left just three points between the sides entering the last quarter. The sides swapped points soon after the goal but we them had the score to really pull away from Newtown when a Jamie Sheedy free found its way to the net despite the best efforts of the Newtown goalie.

This really put us in a great position and we finished off with well taken scores by Brian O’Reilly and Darren Roche to run out winners in the end by nine points 1-17 to 1-8. A great result for the panel and management and they now have the final to look forward too in the coming weeks. This will be played against Glanworth or Ballygiblin who done battle last Saturday evening in Araglin but the game was unfortunately abandoned when one of the Ballygiblin players suffered a injury, we wish him a speedy recovery and will see him on the field again soon.

Team: Declan Fitzgibbon, James Hayes, Eoin McHugh, Alan Sheedy, Padraig Fitzgerald, Sean Lynch, Brian Sheedy, Robert McHugh, Colman O’Reilly, Jamie Sheedy, Brian O’Reilly, Eoin O’Regan, Paul Burke, Richard Burke, Jonathan Dennehy Subs: Darren Roche for Eoin O’Regan, Kenneth Barry for Paul Burke, Vincent Burke for Jonathan Dennehy.