Superb St Finbarr's sink Premier Senior Hurling champions Imokilly in quarter-final
Imokilly's Ciaran O'Brien battles with St Finbarr's Jack Cahalane. Picture: David Keane.
Down go the champions, and with no room for grievance. At the very ground where St Finbarr’s were unceremoniously dumped out of last year’s Co-Op Superstores Cork Premier Senior Hurling Championship, they returned to Midleton on Sunday and strode out 10-point winners against Imokilly.
This was Barrs hurling at its most cold-blooded. They muzzled Jack Leahy into silence from play. They limited Diarmuid Healy to a single point. And they restricted the holders to just 1-7 from play across the hour.
Even the goal they conceded carried an asterisk. With 21 minutes gone, Shane Hurley misjudged Séamus Harnedy’s dropping effort, the ball slithering through his grasp and into the net. A gift, and Imokilly’s first lead.
They would briefly cough and reclaim that advantage, holding it until the 29th minute. From there, they never led again – nor threatened to.
When Harnedy levelled for a third time in the 28th minute, the Barrs response was instant. Jack Cahalane clipped over, Ben Cunningham added a free, and the returning Brian Hayes, raw from two wasted chances in the space of a minute, stamped his presence in emphatic fashion.
John Wigginton Barrett found him, Hayes wriggled free despite the squeeze of three defenders, and this time he made no mistake – a searing finish high past Eoin Davis. The green flag planted the Barrs five clear at the break, conviction in their stride, ready to face into the wind, 1-10 to 1-5.
Immediately on the resumption, Hayes threatened a goal once more – this time denied superbly by Eoin Davis. A quick one-two from Bill Cooper and Harnedy after a turnover gave Imokilly the opening score of the half with the wind, after 35 minutes. But that would be only one of four third-quarter points with the breeze.
Cue 1-2 from the Barrs. First up Jack Cahalane with the major, after Cunningham put a deep ball into Hayes, who shrugged off Ciarán O’Brien, before popping to Jack Cahalane, and he rifled into the bottom corner to send the Barrs crowd into raptures.
Ben Cunningham and Hayes added to the tally, 2-12 to 1-6 with 21 minutes to go.
Imokilly raised three white flags on the hop – Timmy Wilk’s effort from the halfway line the pick of them – leaving the margin at six by the end of the third quarter. They would get no closer.
And when Jack O’Kelly’s thundering run set John Wigginton Barrett away to blast home the third goal in the 46th minute – from the same angle as Cahalane’s nine minutes earlier – it was hammer, nail, coffin for the champions.
Two frees from Cunningham took that lead to a game high of 11, nine minutes to play. But in the midst of all that, the Togher men at the back had as great a role to play in their dominance. Damien Cahalane had Leahy under wraps. Ciarán Doolan and Billy Hennessy reigned supreme in the air. Ethan Twomey, dropping further back in the latter half, was as assured as ever.
But the tackles, turnovers and work rate, made all the difference. The Barrs came good right when it mattered. Imokilly, left shellshocked, were only able to shave a point off the deficit by full-time.
The first quarter was tame, the Barrs 0-4 to 0-2 in front after seven minutes, that lead the same at 0-6 to 0-4 by the 17th.
But Imokilly crucially lost Ciarán Joyce to injury in the closing stages of the opening act, and when Hayes slipped through, the first of the Imokilly cracks started to show. And the Barrs punched through each and every one.
A semi-final with reigning Munster club champions Sarsfields now awaits; for Imokilly, the season is over.
B Cunningham 0-7 (0-4 f), J Cahalane 1-2 (0-1 f), B Hayes, J Wigginton Barrett 1-1 each, W Buckley 0-2, J O’Kelly, D Cahalane, C Cahalane 0-1 each
S Harnedy 1-2, J Leahy 0-4 (0-2 f, 0-2 65), B Cooper, T Wilk 0-2 each, E Davis (f), D Healy 0-1 each.
S Hurley; C Walsh, J Burns (c), D Cahalane; C Cahalane, C Doolan, B Hennessy; E Twomey, J Wigginton Barrett; B Cunningham, J Cahalane, J O’Kelly; S Cunningham, B Hayes, W Buckley.
E Keane for Walsh (19 inj), R Barrett for O’Kelly (52 inj), C McCarthy for B Cunningham (59 inj), C O’Connor for S Cunningham (60+1), A Barry for Buckley (60+4).
E Davis (St Catherine’s); J McCarthy (Dungourney), C O’Brien (St Ita’s) T Wilk (Cobh); M Russell (Aghada), C Joyce (Castlemartyr), J Cronin (Lisgoold); S Hegarty (Dungourney), B Cooper (Youghal); Brian Lawton (Castlemartyr) (c), D Healy (Lisgoold), S Harnedy (St Ita’s); M Kelly (Castlemartyr), J Leahy (Dungourney), B Hartnett (Russell Rovers).
O Fitzgerald (St Catherine’s) for Joyce (25, inj), C O’Callaghan (Dungourney) for Lawton (44), J Stack (Castlemartyr) for Hartnett (49).
I McCarthy (Bandon)
App?
