Russell Rovers 3-9
Our Junior B footballers exited the East Cork Championship at the quarter final stage after a tough match against a strong Russell Rovers side. Playing against a strong breeze in the first half it was the Rovers who would register the opening score in the second minute. Glenville quickly replied with some good passage of play and a Jason Foley point on five minutes had the team’s level. Brendan Maloney got the next two scores to put us up by two points and minutes later Johnny Dorgan was on the receiving end from Darragh O'Callaghan long ball who broke past two rovers’ defenders and buried the ball in the back of the net leaving the scores 1-3 to a 0-1 on fifteen minutes.
Glenville were beginning to win the majority of the possession with Darragh O'Callaghan winning every ball that came his way. Jason Foley was on the receiving end of a long ball from Darragh and put the ball in the back of the net to give us a commanding lead. The next ten minutes were all Russell Rovers with a string of unanswered points as they fought their way back into the game. At half time there was only a goal in it 2-3 to 0-6 points in favour of Glenville.
Brendan Maloney opened the score for us at the start of the second half with a lovely pointed free and minutes later Johnny Dorgan got in for his second goal of the game to put us up by 7 points. Russell rovers always looked dangerous going forward and they caught our lads on the counter attack and almost got in for a goal but the brilliance of Kevin O'Donovan, who got down low to his right and stopped the ball from hitting the back of the net. Russell Rovers managed to get their first score of the second half in the 45th minute as they reduced the gap to 6 points and within seconds the deficit was down to five points.
Glenville then stepped up a gear as they began to dominate the possession and two points from JJ Kearney and a Brendan Maloney free increased our lead back to 8 points with ten minutes left. Russell Rovers hit back and this time they made no mistake as they broke past the Glenville defence to set up a well taken goal to level the scores at 3-7 to 1-8 with only five minutes left on the clock. Russell Rovers showed us why they were dangerous going forward as they carved through the Glenville defence but this time they went for the point and the gap was down to 4 points with time almost up but little did we know what was about to happen and once again the rovers broke past the Glenville defence and the effort went straight into the back of the net as the gap was now down to a single point. It looked like that our lads were going to becoming away with the victory but the Rovers had one last chance to get the score to force extra time as they broke up the field looking for that opportunity and it looked like that it was going to be extra time but at the very last moment the ball fell shot and flew past the Glenville keeper and hit the net as Russell Rovers snatched the victory at the death winning on a score line of 3-9 to 3-7.
They will be bitterly disappointed but hats off to our Junior B footballers who put up a magnificent performance.
Team that lined out against Russell Rovers: Kevin O'Donovan, Ciaran O'Keeffe, Paud O'Neill, Don O’Riordon, Darragh O'Callaghan, John O'Connell, Don Kearney, Ger Cahill, Jason Foley, Joe Cullotty, JJ Kearney( Captain), Josh Cook, Johnny Dorgan, Brendan Maloney, David Dennehy. Subs Thomas Dinan for John O'Connell, Aaron Collins for David Dennehy