Hat-trick for Chris Óg Jones as Iveleary overpower Nemo Rangers

Iveleary 4-11 Nemo Rangers 0-5 

NEMO Rangers have become the latest casualty in Iveleary’s relentless march up the Cork football ladder, last year’s intermediate champions dishing out a wholly unexpected 17-point hammering to book their quarter-final spot in the PIFC grade. 

Having started the afternoon third in Group A, this demolition job of Nemo airlifted John McNulty’s charges to the top of the group and into the last six of the championship.

Junior champions from the delayed 2020 campaign and intermediate winners last year, Iveleary will now play Rockchapel for the chance to position themselves one hour from a premier intermediate county final appearance.

It’s been a remarkable rise – and one, going on the evidence provided here, that ain’t over yet. Far from it.

For Nemo, this was a most abject and un-Nemo-like display. Their use of possession was careless in the extreme, while they carried no threat up front. Highlighting such is that their first point from play didn’t arrive until the 43rd minute, and that was just their third point in proceedings by the almost three-quarter juncture.

This defeat, coupled with Cill na Martra’s win over Vincent’s, brought the curtain down on their involvement. A significant fall having entered Round 3 as group leaders.

Iveleary had the wind at their backs in the first half and while they didn’t exactly shoot the lights out, they did crucially succeed in limiting their opponents to just one point across the opening half an hour – that a Ross Corkery free on 11 minutes.

The interval scoreline read 1-5 to 0-1, Chris Óg Jones registering the first of his green flag hat-trick on 26 minutes. He and Cathal Vaughan were the destructors-in-chief on the Iveleary side, Vaughan kicking a pair of frees and a pair from play in the opening half an hour.

A Ross Corkery free five minutes into the second period reduced the gap to six. No closer would Nemo come, though, as the flood gates opened at the other end.

Jones notched his second major on 42 minutes, the corner-forward showing superb strength to hold off three Nemo players when the ball bounced menacingly in the large parallelogram.

His namesake Ian ran in Iveleary’s third goal on 50 minutes before Chris, again showing his aerial prowess, rattled the net for his third on the hour mark to complete the 17-point win.

Keep an eye on this Iveleary outfit in the knockout stages, they will have a say.

Scorers for Iveleary: C Óg Jones 3-2 (0-1 f), C Vaughan 0-6 (0-3 f), I Jones 1-1, T Roberts, B O’Leary 0-1 each.

Nemo Rangers: R Corkery 0-3 f, E Mangan, C O’Donovan 0-1 each.

IVELEARY: J Creedon; D O’Donovan, C O’Riordan, A O’Brien; K Manning, C Galvin, T Roberts; C O’Leary, S O’Riordan; B O’Leary, S O’Leary, B Cronin; C Óg Jones, C Vaughan, I Jones.

Subs: L Kearney for B O’Leary (51); A O’Donovan for Vaughan (52).

NEMO: D O’Leary; D Egan, A McGowan, S O’Dwyer; S Burke, E Nation, C O’Brien; J O’Donovan, S Martin; E Dilloughery, E Mangan, G Sayers; R Corkery, C O’Donovan, C Dalton.

Subs: C Kiely for Martin (h-t); J Coogan for Sayers (45); J Scally for O’Dwyer (50); A Browne for Dilloughery, I Nolan for Nation (both 55).

Referee: M Collins.