What we learned from Senior A Hurling cracker between Bride Rovers and Castlelyons

While Bride Rovers have to be commended and congratulated for their wonderful achievement of being crowned Senior A Hurling kingpins on Saturday night, we must also spare a thought for the pain that the entire community of Castlelyons would have felt.

As every sports fans knows, as they have probably seen both sides of the coin, one team’s great comeback is invariably the other team’s car crash, their nightmare come to fruition.

That is what Castlelyons will be thinking this week. They had it in their grasp, but it slipped agonisingly away in the cruellest of manners.

The game will be remembered for its amazing finish but it really sprang to life just after the 22-minute mark with two inspirational scores at either end from each team’s talismanic attackers.

Firstly, Anthony Spillane won a great ball from Castlelyons’ goalkeeper Jack Barry out by the left wing under severe pressure from Bride Rovers’ full-back Eoin Roche. Roche even got a paw on the sliotar momentarily, but the ball popped back into Spillane’s grasp immediately and he managed to clip a shot just beyond Roche’s attempted block that crept between the posts to be greeted by a huge Castlelyons roar from the stands.

From the next puck-out Bride Rovers keeper Cian Hogan took a short one and after receiving it back he arrowed a low ball to his left wing to the onrushing Brian Roche, who got a half yard on Niall O’Leary, for once in the half, and collected the ball and swivelled in an instant. 

He then accelerated away towards goal, burst through one tackle and after taking one exaggerated step to his left to get out of blocking range of a couple of would-be Castlelyons defenders, he fired it over the bar, for a burst of noise, but this time from the Rathcormac faithful.

It was just two plays, but it was a minute of fantastic championship action.

Castlelyons will obviously have huge regrets over how the last few minutes transpired, but they will also look back at the opening six minutes of the second half and the influence Adam Walsh had, as he bagged 1-2 in this spell, and was involved in another Bride Rovers point. This would obviously prove costly in hindsight.

Castlelyons responded brilliantly to Walsh’s major, getting two inspirational scores from Colm and Anthony Spillane before David Morrison capitalised on a spilled ball to drill a low shot to the back of the Rovers net in the 42nd minute. 

And when Leon Doocey buried the sliotar four minutes later, they suddenly had a commanding six-point lead with just fourteen minutes remaining on the clock.

Perhaps those two goals came too quickly. There was still too much time left on the clock to just hold onto what they had, yet that seems to be what Castlelyons did, as their own scores dried up, while Rovers went into desperation mode.

Castlelyons started going too deep. It is a natural thing to do when all your instincts are telling you to just hang on, but it can have the effect of giving all the momentum to the opposition, which is what happened on Saturday evening.

FORCING IT

In saying that, when James Kearney sliced over a brilliant individual point in the 53rd minute, it looked to be Castlelyons' day. Bride Rovers had already started to try and force it by going for goals at that stage, and they were being repelled by the men in black.

With less than three minutes remaining they were still four down, but Paddy O’Flynn’s fortuitous goal in the 58th minute, when his lobbed ball in went all the way to the back of the net, flipped the game on its head.

O’Flynn and Cillian Tobin both stormed into proceedings when the need was greatest. 

O’Flynn grabbed 1-1 when they were in a hole, while Tobin landed a point from downtown when it was required, while he mopped up a world of ball all over the pitch in those frantic last 10 minutes.

Paddy O’Flynn had the coolness to play the last Bride Rovers attack into the corner soccer-style, the final piece of drama.

 Those seconds would have been beyond frustrating for the Castlelyons contingent, but it was so clever from the centre-forward, as it ensured that their neighbours would not get that one last attack they needed to rescue themselves.