John Horgan on hurling: Carrigaline delivered the most impressive display of the weekend

If one was searching for incredible drama and very late night entertainment, Páirc Uí Rinn was the place to be last Friday and Saturday night.

On both nights we had all kinds of everything, the fare on offer kept us enthralled right up to almost 10pm.

For obvious reasons, the Premier SHC is the flagship competition here on Leeside, games that are meant to hold our attention right up to the closing stages.

However, the games at a lower level, Senior A, Premier Intermediate and so on are often far more captivating and that's exactly what transpired in the Carrigtwohill against Na Piarsaigh encounter in the Senior A Championship and Dungourney against Aghabullogue in the PIHC.

The excitement levels in both games reached fever pitch and in regulation time a resolution could not be found in either. Into extra-time we went in both games, one of them having to be resolved with a penalty shootout.

That was in the Carrig-Na Piarsaigh encounter and 24 hours later we were just seconds away from a second penalty shootout.

The general consensus among the attendance and everywhere else is that a penalty shootout is not the acceptable way to decide a game, one team eventually succeeding and the other having their season of hurling heartbreakingly terminated.

Those of us from an older generation never thought we'd see a major game of hurling decided by penalties.

When the decision was taken a couple of years ago that this was going to be the case there was widespread disapproval.

Find a resolution some other way, another game, the first team to score when the 80 minutes had expired but please, no penalties.

But we live in changed times, the season is far more condensed than it once was, clubs have a number of dual players and one, two replays cannot happen anymore.

There has to be an acceptance that everything does change, new formats, new rules etc are introduced but penalties should be the last straw, whatever about Gaelic football but not hurling. But it is what it is now and at the end of a penalty shootout, there is a graphic illustration of agony and ecstasy, one team wildly celebrating, the other one utterly distraught.

Gutsy

For long periods in the Carrigtwohill-Na Piarsaigh encounter the city team held the edge, leading at different stages by four, five and six points. That's never a significant advantage in a game of hurling these days and Carrig dug very deep at times to ensure we got extra-time and that dreaded penalty shootout.

Carrigtwohill teams going back to the '60s always had that resilience, that inner belief and battling qualities that ensured they were always a tough nut to crack.

Long, long ago their duels with Castlemartyr in the East Cork JHC became the stuff of legend.

The introduction of Justin Oke on Friday night certainly worked the oracle, he rifled over three fine points and alongside Matt Barrett, James Mulcahy, Patrick Walsh among others the necessary scores kept the flag flying.

Na Piarsaigh will probably reflect on the game as an opportunity lost and despite having 11 different scorers over the course of the game, their mighty effort just fell short.

In the hurling homes of Farranree, the word penalties does not sit easily. This is the second time in a short couple of years that they have lost in this manner.

They lost to Castlelyons two years ago in a 25-penalty shootout classic at the same venue when those of us in attendance were left almost breathless at the conclusion of that incredible marathon.

But all teams are aware of the rules beforehand and it was Carrig who triumphed and marched on to a semi-final.

In the second game on Saturday night, Dungourney and Aghabullogue served up an absolute thriller which, thankfully, did not go to penalties, the Duns securing the win by the bare minimum in extra-time.

Their blistering start, a brace of early goals delivered by the impressive Cillian O'Callaghan ultimately proved crucial even if they fell behind in the nerve-jangling final minutes.

O'Callaghan, Jack Leahy and the outstanding John Aherne, my choice for the Man of the Match, secured the big scores against an Aghabullogue side who recovered fantastically well from a shaky start to take the contest right to the wire.

We are now very much at the business end of the campaign in all grades and from this perspective, one of the most impressive displays from the entire weekend was delivered by Carrigaline in their trouncing of Cloyne in the PIHC, winning by 14 points in their 32-point haul.

Nothing has been won yet but it's been so far, so good for the Carrigdhoun club in both codes, their footballers moving straight through to the semi-final of the Premier Senior Championship. 

As they say, a rising tide lifts many boats and they are now heavily involved on both fronts.

Being brutally honest, Cloyne were desperately poor and only a few late scores put some respectability on the scoresheet.

At the group stage, they had beaten Dungourney but in the knockout stage their travels have gone in opposite directions.

Brian Kelleher, Eanna Desmond, Oisin O'Connell and Rhys McCarthy delivered the bulk of Carrigaline's highly impressive 32-point haul. Overall, it was a very balanced display that will further raise their confidence levels.

No guarantees

Much is expected from big satellite towns and highly populated urban areas but that guarantees nothing.

Take big city clubs like Bishopstown and Douglas, clubs where some great work is ongoing, a very strong underage structure but continuing to fall short at adult level and over the weekend, relegation was their fate. Douglas losing their Premier Senior Hurling status and for the third year running the trap door opening for Bishopstown and from being a once very prominent senior club, beaten finalists in 2012, they will operate next season in the second tier of the intermediate championship.

That is a fairly staggering fall from grace in such a short space of time and nobody derives any pleasure from that. 

But as we have seen over the past number of years, no club is immune from relegation and, after all, you get four opportunities to prevent that occurrence.

Maybe sometimes a club must take a backyard step to move forward again but nothing comes easy in any grade now. The emphasis when a new season begins is to try and maximise everything to regain your status as quickly as possible.

Glen Rovers did that a few years back but easier said than done. You always wants to be in two or three places at the one time, not possible, of course, and we must rely on reports from many games and trawling through newspapers for information.

And one scoreline caught our attention, the Aghada, Mallow encounter in the IAHC, 3-23 for the East Cork team, 3-21 for Mallow with Aghada leading at one stage by 15 points. It must have been some game of hurling