Pearses 6-7 Meelick Eyrecourt 1-3. Having topped their group in the recent Feile campaign, Meelick Eyrecourt were always going to be a formidable side andamp;amp; the players and management felt this one would be an onerous task. However, it was the Pearses lads who took all the plaudits for the manner in which they defeated the visitors at home in Ballymacward today.
Pearses opened the scoring within seconds of the throw-in with a point from play from Cian Murphy and added a 2nd from a 65 moments later. Pearses struck for the their first goal early on after a good build up from the back involving Oisin Donoughue as Luke Mitchell sent in a dangerous ball into the square which was well finished by Ethan Lally who was deployed in a new full forward role. It took 13 mins for Meelick-Eyrecourt to open their account; a goal which Harry Mitchell got his stick to but was unable to keep out.
This buoyed up the Pearses boys and almost straight from the puck out young Conor Kelly scored a marvellous goal after collecting a cross-field pass from Paddy Kenny. Cian Murphy kept the points tally going with a good individual point from play, his 3rd of the half. The visitors responded with a pointed free to make it 2-3 to 1-01. Paddy Kenny then scored a tonic goal after a long ball from Cian Murphy was batted out by the goalie but every vigilant forward will be in the right place to pounce on a rebound.
Ethan Lally scored his first point after good outfield work from Murphy and almost straight from the restart Conor Moran won the puck out near the stand and his massive long range effort went over the black spot to make it 3-05 to 1-01 at half time. Soon after the restart Eyrecourt scored a lovely point on the run to claw their way back into the game as an onslaught looked imminent from the visitors for the first 10mins of the 2nd half. During this period our backs did well as Brian Kelly, Robert Hynes andamp;amp; Oisin Donoghue battled it out.
Then Cian Murphy put a bit of breathing space between the sides again after a lovely solo run through the middle of the field and hit the ball off the hurl and over for his 4th point of the day. Eyrecourt got another point back from play to leave the sides 3-06 to 1-03. From here to the end belonged totally to Pearses as they racked up another 3 goals, the first from Conor Kelly who latched onto a long delivery from Luke Mitchell. Ronan Hynes got his name on the scoreboard seconds later with a blazing shot which rattled the net after good work from Ethan Lally andamp;amp; Darragh Roche.
Conor Kelly claimed his 3rd goal with a one-handed pull after he latched onto another floating ball sent in from Luke Mitchell. Harry Mitchell showed his alertness at the other end with a great diving save to concede a 65 which was missed by Eyrecourt. In injury time, David Hillary finished the scoring with a great point from play to finish off on an impressive 6-07 to 1-03 scoreline. And so Pearses U14’s make it 4 wins out of 5 in their group games with Ardrahan andamp;amp; Castlegar yet to play. Manager Niall Skehill should be a happy camper.