Our U21 hurlers put right the wrongs of last weekend, with a Preliminary Quarter-Final victory today, over Oranmore-Maree in Turloughmore. Pearses flew out of the blocks with the first two attacks yielding two Colm Raftery pointed frees. Oranmore responded, but Raftery went low and buried a 21-yard free to stretch the Pearses lead. Three further points (Raftery, Hennelly and Robbie Lally) put Pearses seven clear. Enda Cunniffe then delivered a low ball to Gary Lally, at corner-forward and Lally showed a clean pair of heels to the corner-back, to net Pearses’ second goal.
It looked at this stage as if it might be a one-sided affair. The second goal conceded however seemed to stir Oranmore-Maree to life and they began to fight back, mainly through frees. Pearses’ did tack on 2 more points before half-time, one by Paul Moore from a near impossible angle. The score at the break was Pearses 2-7 Oranmore-Maree 0-6.
By the 10th minute of the second half Oranmore-Maree had reduced the Pearses lead to 4, with a goal of their own. Pearses added 3 points to open the gap again by the 15th minute. But, from here until the finish it was all Oranmore-Maree. They hit 6 unanswered points to leave the margin at the minimum, in injury time. One last assault on the Pearses back line at the death was thwarted and the referee’s sounded the final whistle, for a narrow Pearses win.
Pearses can look back on an excellent first Quarter, but they will need to maintain that level until the end of the game to win a Quarter-Final. They allowed Oranmore-Maree back into the game and could well have been pipped at the finish, like last week. It’s good to win with improvements still to be made and also to be looking ahead to a Quarter-Final. Quarter-Final opponents to be decided in an open draw. Watch out for updates on Facebook.
Pearses: F Healy; R Skehill, D Skehill, T Broderick; J Lally, R Bellew, B Egan; E Cunniffe, P Moore (0-1); C Raftery (1-7), K Beckett, R Lally (0-1); D Kelly, G Hennelly (0-1), G Lally (1-1).