June 19 2021
Kelly Cup Round 2
Ballintubber 1-10 Louisburg 0-17
Louisburg will certainly be ones to watch for the Intermediate championship after they saw off our seniors with a superior display in Clogher this evening.
The visitors – who recently accounted for Breaffy - looked sharper, livelier and more clinical right from the beginning.
Indeed, a very late goal from our own Damien Coleman probably made the game looked closer that it actually was.
Louisburg played the better football throughout, with Dylan Prendergast and Kevin Gibbons in excellent form throughout.
Prendergast alone accounted for 0-8 of his team’s haul on an evening where we really struggled to get scores.
Even though we were able to narrow the gap to four after Louisburg were reduced to 14 men with ten minutes to go, the visitors never looked in trouble.
The opening exchanges saw Gary Loftus and Hugh Geraghty driving forward to kick two of our only scores from play.
Joe Geraghty was also commanding at centre-back during the first half while Jason Gibbons imposed himself around the middle.
While the visitors made hay through the advanced mark rule, we had to feed off scraps in the form of a handful of free kicks from full-forward Stephen O’Malley.
Louisburg simply didn’t allow us to play, and men were frequently swamped by black and yellow jerseys as soon as they ventured into the danger zone.
With the Padraig Prendergast and Basil McLeod excelling in the middle third, our opponents went five ahead in the 20th minute after securing another point through a mark from the excellent Dylan Prendergast.
We were able to plug the gap to a point through four hard-won frees from Stephen O’Malley, but we still hadn’t gotten out of second gear when the half-time whistle blew.
Damien Coleman, Jamsi Finnerty and Darragh McGovern added some impetus when they were introduced early in the second half, but Louisburg pressed on regardless.
A wicked shot on goal from Louisburg centre-forward Kevin Gibbons flew over the bar early in the second half as the visitors began to slowly pull away.
Our opponents tigerish defending smothered many of our attacks, and by the water break the game the scores read 0-15 to 0-9 against us.
A glimmer of hope appeared when Louisburg’s Stephen Corrigan was given a second yellow card, but we struggled to take advantaged.
With six points between the sides, we rallied to produce our best move of the game, which finished with Damien Coleman and Jason Gibbons exchanging passes before Coleman palmed the ball into the net.
With only a minute remaining, it proved ‘too little, too late’ as Louisburg had the last say, finishing the game with a haul 0-17 from five different players.
Ballintubber team that lined out: (1)Frank Walsh (2)Gary Loftus (0-1) (3)Finian Bourke (4)Myles Kelly (5)Gavin Roache (6)Joe Geraghty (7)Hugh Geraghty (0-1) (8)David McHale (9)Jason Gibbons (10)Aaron Lally (11)Alan Plunkett (12)Ciaran Gavin (0-1, 1f) (13)Keelan McDonnell (0-1) (14)Stephen O’Malley (0-6, 5f) (15)Stephen Burke
Substitutions used: Damien Coleman (1-0) for Hugh Geraghty (33 min), Jamsie Finnerty for Aaron Lally (33 min), Darragh McGovern for David McHale (41 min)
Referee: Kevin Corcoran