Glanworth hold on for a fine win over Mayfield in Intermediate A Championship

Glanworth 1-14 Mayfield 0-12

GLANWORTH kept their hopes of reaching the knockout stages of the Bon Secours Cork Intermediate A Football Championship alive as they deservedly defeated Mayfield 1-14 to 0-12 in Blarney on Sunday night.

A clinical display from Shane O’Riordan and also substitute Mikie Shehan in the second half was enough to earn Glanworth their first win in Group C.

These two sides were beaten in their first game back after the restart with Glanworth losing 2-14 to 1-8 against Mitchelstown, who top the group with two wins out of two, three weeks previous while Mayfield narrowly lost 2-11 to 2-8 against Adrigole the same weekend.

Glanworth showed more desire in the opening exchanges and they grabbed a couple of early scores through left half back Philip Blackburn and a well taken free from the excellent Shane O’Riordan.

Mayfield could only muster one point in the first 29 minutes of this encounter and that came courtesy of Colm O’Neill, who split the uprights with a looping strike from long range.

The green and whites added to their lead with O’Riordan notching two more brilliant overs and that came either side of the only goal from Stephen Condon, who somehow managed to slot the ball past the keeper under severe pressure from his marker.

O’Riordan fired over the black spot on two more occasions before the half time break - one coming in the 41st minute of the first half - but Mayfield, to their credit, grabbed four on the bounce in injury time to ensure they only trailed it 1-6 to 0-5 at the interval.

They took that momentum into the second period and three points without reply moved them to within one of Glanworth.

But led by O’Riordan and sub Mikie Sheehan, Glanworth hit back with three of their own and they continued to fend off Mayfield’s resilience with superb scores to claim a five-point triumph.

Scorers for Glanworth: S O’Riordan 0-7 (0-3 f), M Sheehan 0-4, S Condon 1-0, E O’Donoghue, P Blackburn and R Murphy 0-1 each.

Mayfield: P Condon 0-8 (0-6 f), C O’Neill, J Sheehy, D Malone and D Lucey 0-1 each.

GLANWORTH: S Cunningham; T Condon, E O’Donoghue, J Blackburn; P Blackburn, J Coughlan, D Colfer; R Murphy, D Pyne; J O’Sullivan, P O’Driscoll, J Fitzgibbon; S Condon, G O’Neill, S O’Riordan.

Subs: M Sheehan for G O’Neill (ht), R O’Driscoll for D Pyne (39), P Hannon for P O’Driscoll (45).

MAYFIELD: D Hackett; B O’Leary, S Hackett, S Keegan; D O’Neill, C Horgan, A Kelly; S O’Donovan, K Punch; C O’Neill, J Sheehy, D Malone; D Lucey, P Condon, D Gibson.

Subs: S Kelly for K Punch (39), J McAuliffe for D Gibson (44), J O’Donovan for C Horgan (51), D O’Flaherty for A Kelly (62).

Referee: Michael Walsh (St Catherines).