Ballivor 7-11 Clann na nGael 6-13

Spirits were high in the Ballivor camp following Friday nights Intermediate game v Duleek in which Ballivor secured their place in the Intermediate Championship quarter finals. The mood had clearly flowed down to the Premier side who were facing Clann na nGael on Saturday afternoon in Ráth Cairn. Both teams went into the game knowing they were already into a semi-final having both beaten Summerhill in the previous weeks. However, it was definitely not a dead-rubber, with top spot on the line and the incentive of a home semi-final against the runners up of group A. Clann na Ngael had a strong panel available to them, by virtue of having only played one first team game compared to Ballivor’s three. Most of the players know each other well and when these two teams meet it is rarely boring, but nobody could have predicted the 13-goal thriller that was about to follow.

Clann na Ngael started much stronger and scored 2-04 with no reply from Ballivor. It was looking ominous for the visitors but then someone flicked a switch somewhere and the men in maroon woke up and put together a string of scores of their own including a goal from Shay Diggins and points from Nathan Clarke and Cealain Geraghty. The sun was beating down and referee Seamus O’Connor understood how tough it was to play in that heat and allowed for water breaks in both halves. By the time, the first water break came, Ballivor had almost drawn their opponents back in. After the water break Ballivor built on the momentum that they had. The Clann na Ngael defence couldn’t live with the movement of the full forward line and the powerful running of the half forward line. Then the goals started flooding in. Ciarán Dowling found full forward Thomas Macleod in a bit of space who then found the net and put Ballivor in front for the first time. Shay Diggins who was unplayable at wing forward added two more goals and completed a first half hat trick for himself. His goals were nearly identical to each other, running from deep down the left hand wing, coming inside and finishing low and across the keeper into the bottom right corner. The hosts got a goal back and the score at half time was Ballivor 4-07 Clann na Ngael 3-07.

The second half followed similar vein, neither team with too much intent on protecting their net minders. Ballivor stretched the lead to 5 points and then similar to the beginning of the game switched off again. Clann na Ngael scored three goals in as many minutes and just like that found themselves 5 points up. Shay Diggins scored his fourth goal of the day, Nathan Clarke found the top corner and with a couple of points for both teams Ballivor found themselves two down with just a few minutes to go.

Ballivor pushed on to try and get a result and up stepped Cathal Mckeon who put the ball in the net and put Ballivor one up going into injury time. Ballivor won the ball back and completely uncharacteristically for this game slowed it down and kept possession for over four minutes without losing it until Seamus O’Connor decided that enough was enough.

The win means that Ballivor finish top of the group and have earned a home semi final against whoever finishes second in the other group.

Ballivor Team. Dylan Heavey, James Kelly, Darren Kilcoyne, Jacob Ryan, Mark Hand, Killian Canavan, Ciaran Browne, Darragh Ryan, Ciaran Dowling, Nathan Clarke, Joe McLaughlin, Shay Diggins, Richie Sherrock, Thomas Macleod, Cealain Geraghty. Subs: Cathal Mckeon, Chris Dunne, Paddy McElhinney, Kevin Burke, Paul Kelly, Chris Carrol, Ronan Comey

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