Douglas 0-17 Ballyhea 1-11 

DOUGLAS had to dig deep to see off Ballyhea in Mallow on Saturday evening on a near-perfect evening for senior club hurling to get their Co-op Superstores Premier Senior Hurling Championship Round 1 campaign off to a near-perfect start.

Led on the pitch by a host of senior inter-county stars Douglas settled into this game well, however some wasteful shooting and some poor shot selection meat that the city side only led by three at the first drinks break by 0-5 to 0-2.

Alan and Eoin Cadogan, as well as Shane Kingston and Brian Turnbull, looked impressive from the off. The older of the Cadogan brothers, Eoin, was dominating from defence while the younger Cadogan, Turnbull and Kingston all led their markers a merry dance early on.

Captain Mark Harrington at centre-back and Conor Kingstown at full-back did well throughout with both players having their turns at handling Ballyhea’s danger-man Pa O’Callaghan.

For the north Cork aside, O’Callaghan was as per usual the main threat with Jamie Copps and Eugene O’Leary also doing well – Copps, in particular, was the main midfielder on show and led the charge for the Avondhu side from the middle of the park.

Ballyhea got to grips with the task in the second quarter and were much more competitive with the corner-backs Kevin Copps and Caoleann Cox stunting the impact of the Douglas corner forwards.

At this point things started to get a little difficult for the boys in green as first they lost Turnbull to injury on the 18th minute just as O Callaghan started a Ballyhea mini-revival which saw the full-forward bag five points without response to drag his side into a one point lead.

Douglas responded to the Ballyhea fightback with a brace from Kingston and Alan Cadogan to lead this one my the minimum at the break: 0-8 to 0-7. 

The second half started as the first ended with a free from Kingston and a point from Mark Harrington cancelled out by a brace of frees from the Ballyhea talisman O’Callaghan.

The scoreboard showed parity on five occasions to the second drinks break however from that point on Douglas looked like the fitter side and managed to pull away with scores from Andy O’Connell, Aaron Ward and a monster from Harrington to round off the win.

Ballyhea, to their credit stuck to the task and goaled in added time thanks to the quick thinking of Kevin Copps.

Delight for Douglas as they head to play Sras next weekend however 15 wides will not do against the Glanmire men.

Scorers for Douglas: A Cadogan 0-6; S Kingston 0-4 (0-2 f), M Harrington 0-2; S Donegan, B Turnbull, C O’Donovan, A Ward, A O’Connell 0-1 each.

Ballyhea: P O’Callaghan 0-9 (0-5 f, 0-1 65); K Copps 1-0; J Morrissey, E O’Leary 0-1.

DOUGLAS: D Maher; B O’Neill, C Kingston, D Murphy; E Cadogan, M Harrington, C O’Donovan; C Baldwin, S Moylan; E Dolan, Daniel Harte, S Kingston: A Cadogan, S Donegan, B Turnbull. 

Subs: A O’Connell for B Turnbull (18 inj), D Ward for D Murphy (inj 32), A Ward for D Harte (45).

BALLYHEA: M Browne; K Copps, A Barrett, C Cox; T Foley, L O’Connor, M Morrissey; J Copps, J Morrissey; M O’Sullivan, T Hanley, G Morrissey; L Crowley, P O’Callaghan, E O’Leary. 

Subs: J O’Leary for K Copps (h-t), E O’Sullivan for L Crowley (40), K Copps for T Foley (49).

Referee: Conor Lane (Banteer)