Our 16s advanced to the Tucker Kelly Shield final with a resounding 4-0 win away to Ballyhar last Wednesday evening. A beautiful sunny evening unfolded as both teams started at a hundred miles an hour trying to establish dominance. Even though Ballyhar were a bit bigger than us in one or two positions, our team were determined not to lose again to our opponents who beat us 2-1 about a month ago in the same venue in the league. We probably shaded it throughout and made our chances count at one end and defended well at the other. A brace from lone forward Christopher Murphy, 2 more by Ciaran Murray and Ossie Clifford gave us the win. The first 2 goals were the result of tigerish play by Ciaran Carmody who forced Ballyhar into mistakes at the back. Our back 5 of Brian O’Regan, David Lenihan, Ossie Clifford, Ciaran Murray and Padraig O’Mahony stood up well to the Ballyhar offence throughout with Alan McElligott in front of them picking up the pieces and starting may attacks for us. The midfield 4 of Alan, Cormac O Brien,Ciaran Carmody and Jack Lynch worked hard throughout. As usual Alan and Cormac in the middle were combative but maybe the most pleasing aspect of the game for us was the performance of our 2 wide players Carmo and Jack who stopped the opposition wide players and full backs deep in their half. We eventually lost Jack and Cormac through injury with Padraig Donnellan and Conor Lowe coming on. Both had an immediate impact on the game with Padraig showing everyone how to hit long passes and Conor’s combination with Christopher up front always a threat.Towards the end the game got stretched and with our 2 lads up front we always looked like we would score. It was very frenetic for the last 10 mins with a number of corners in our box seeing all 22 players in our box, but with Ossie Clifford and Ciaran Murray dominant in the air we held out. Well done to the team and we wish a speedy recovery to the lads who were injured on the night and also to Ed Moynihan who missed the game through injury.