Division 1 HL: Robbie Cotter stars as Blackrock run riot against Carrigtwohill
Blackrock's Robbie Cotter gathers the sliotar from Carrigtwohill's Aaron Walsh Barry during the RedFM HL division 1 game at Church road. Picture: Eddie O'Hare
Blackrock manager Jamie Harrington emphasised the importance of peaking at the right time. It may only be April, but Blackrock weren’t far off their peak in this RedFM Hurling League Division 1 encounter at Church Road.
The 12-point winning margin doesn’t take away from Carrigtwohill’s efforts. For the entire first half they stuck with their opponents. For spells they were better.
But they were simply no match.
Blackrock had a total of 2-25 from play shared among nine different scorers. Robbie Cotter chief among them; 1-7 on the day after being released by the Cork management.
An outstanding performance that takes them to the top of the table after four games.
Blackrock’s only fault on Friday evening could be found in the first half. They were caught out far too easily by their opponents’ restarts. The concession of two goals would arise from that.
The first hole punched after six minutes, Cillian Barry, who was making his first start for Carrig this campaign was on hand to bury it across goal. His goal left it 0-5 to 1-1 in favour of the hosts.
The second major arrived in the 19th minute. Another punishing puckout from Shane Devlin found an unmarked Carrigtwohill forward. Sean Walsh carved open the space, before assisting James Mulcahy for the goal.
At that stage it was 0-8 to 2-5. Carrig were well in the fight. Justin Oke was everywhere in midfield in the opening 30 minutes.
Blackrock did claw back before the interval. Fionn Coleman pulled up with an important goal as he so often does, bringing Carrig’s lead down to two with 23 minutes elapsed. The hosts then reeled off four of the last five scores to take a one point lead at the break.
On the restart the hosts tightened up. Oke’s room to manoeuvre vanished. Time after time he was caught isolated and surrounded by three or four green and gold hooped jerseys.
But their defensive improvement wasn’t the only one. Within three minutes, they had hit Carrig for 1-2. This time Cotter raised the green flag.
Mulcahy got a point back for the visitors, leaving it 2-14 to 2-9 after 34 minutes. Any chance of coming back was quickly snuffed, however. By the third quarter the Rockies’ lead would be stretched to seven.
Even as they emptied the bench; they raised white flag after white flag. When Carrigtwohill finally got another point from play, the score read 2-21 to 2-13.
Niall Cashman was in fine form for the hosts. He had a number of assists to go with his tally of 0-3. Kevin O’Keeffe impressed, so too did Jamie Ryan in defence.
Credit, too, to Daniel Nolan, with the defender coming in for the injured Adam Rooney and showing promise at right half-back. But there was nothing he, or Carrigtwohill, could do to stop the Rockies.
They finished with a staggering 73% from play conversion rate.
R Cotter 1-7, R Sweeney 0-5 (2 fs), K O’Keeffe 0-4, F Coleman 1-1, N Cashman, S Murphy 0-3 each, D Meaney 0-2, G Connolly (f), J O’Sullivan, F O’Keeffe 0-1 each.
S Walsh 0-9 (6 fs), J Mulcahy 1-4, C Barry 1-0, L Gosnell 0-2, L O’Sullivan 0-1.
G Connolly; J Ryan, Cathal Cormack, G Norberg; L O’Sullivan, S Murphy, A O’Callaghan; N Cashman, D O’Farrell; F Coleman, K O’Keeffe, D Meaney; R Sweeney, R Cotter, PJ Linehan.
J O’Sullivan for Linehan, D Cormack for O’Callaghan (both 40), Ciaran Cormack for K O’Keeffe (44), J Golden for Cathal Cormack, E Cantwell for Murphy (both 47), I O’Keeffe for Meaney (50), J Ryan for Norberg (52), F O’Keeffe for Cotter, E O’Farrell for Sweeney (both 55).
S Devlin; B Twomey, A Walsh Barry, P O’Sullivan; A Rooney, J Horgan, S de Búrca; S Brennan, J Oke; L Gosnell, C O’Riordan; C Barry, L O’Sullivan, J Mulcahy.
D Nolan for Rooney (8 inj), T Hogan for Brennan (41), M O’Connor for P O’Sullivan (51 inj).
Cathal McAllister (Aghada)
App?
