Donoughmore progress in Evening Echo Championship

Donoughmore
progress in Evening Echo Senior Championship

EVENING
ECHO SENIOR CHAMPIONSHIP, ROUND 3
DONOUGHMORE 3-20
ROCKCHAPEL 1-10

It should have
been a classic.
This third round
encounter in the Evening Echo senior ladies
football championship was
to be laced with individual battles but that
failed to materialise last
night in Dromtariffe.
With Rockchapel
knocking hard on the door last season, many
thought they could end Donoughmore’s
nine year winning streak, but the optimists
were left wondering.

It was obvious
from the go there was a gapping void in the
Rock’s offence with sharpshooters
Deirdre O’Reilly, Mairead Kelly, Deirdre O’Sullivan, Gillian
Foley and Regina Curtain amiss, and competing
with the Munster champions
was always going to be a tall order.
The ability to
finish was the defining difference and Donoughmore
had animpressive nine
on the score sheet.
Whilst the score-line
suggests otherwise Rockchapel did well to stunt
their opponents
from gaining any major momentum at crucial stages
of the game. Norma Kelly
and Mairead McCarthy were solid throughout while
keeper Cathy Forrest
showed great composure under high ball.
The battle for
midfield was an intriguing one with the intercounty
pairing of Juliet
Murphy and Norita Kelly but both faired evenly
throughout the
60minutes.

Rockchapel went
ahead with two points in as many minutes from
Brid Stackbut Juliet Murphy
kept her side in tow with a number of frees.
The champions did
well to contain Sinead O’Reilly at centre forward
who was causing huge
problems running at the defence but with no
target woman to hit inside,
they couldn’t respond effectively.
A chance did fall
to Norita Kelly following a perfectly placed
pass from Brid Stack but
a leg save from Niamh Duggan denied the Rock
levelling the contest. But when questions
were asked of Donoughmore they answered them
in style and when Ashling
Barrett found herself unmarked on the edge of
the square, she made
no mistake where the ball would end up.
It appeared they
were motoring comfortably but scores had to
be well worked with the
Rockchapel defence battling hard and they led
1-9 0-5 at the half.

What was said at
the break worked a treat for the champions and
they launched out of
the blocks in the second. Linda Barrett and
Vera Sheehan began to take charge in the half
back line and as a unit
held the contenders scoreless for 21minutes.
Fitness began to
tell for Rockchapel and defensively they couldn’t
seem to get to grips
with top scorer Aisling O’Connor. The Rockchapel
management needed an injection of strength and
called upon the injured
Regina Curtain to come to the fore. The impact
needed was achieved as
Curtain notched three points to reduce the deficit.
Stack began to
dominate in midfield and Christine O’Gorman
and Caramel O’Reilly added
further scores before Norita Kelly produced
a top-drawer goal.
But it was too
little too late and it didn’t phase Donoughmore
who weren’t even in
full swing.
There were flashes
of economic brilliance from the mid Cork outfit
but improvements will
have to be made if they’re to retain the title.
Despite poor entertainment
value, I shudder to think of the epic we would have on our
hands if both clubs had a full deck of cards
to chose from.

Both still look
destined for the final but Inch of course are
capable of throwing a spanner
in the works.
But for now Donoughmore
have yet to learn who their opponents are in
the semi-final while
Rockchapel sit tight to see who they face in
the quarter-finals.

Scorers for
Donoughmore: A O’Connor 1-5, A Barrett 2-0,
J Murphy 0-6 (0-4f), C O’Connell
0-3, L Murphy 0-2, O McSweeney, V Sheehan, L
O’Connell and S
O’Connell 0-1each.

Scorers for
Rockchapel: B Stack 0-3 (0-1free), R Curtain
0-3 (frees), N Kelly 1-0, S O’Reilly,
T O’Sullivan, C O’Gorman and C O’Reilly 0-1each.

DONOUGHMORE:
N Duggan, E Walsh, E O’Sullivan, S O’Connell,
V Sheehan, R Cogan, L Barrett,
H Kelleher, J Murphy (c), A Barrett, L O’Connell,
C O’Connell, O McSweeney,
L Murphy and A O’Connor.

ROCKCHAPEL:
C Forrest, M McCarthy, C Kelly, M O’Connor,
G McNamara, N Kelly, M Stack,
N Kelly, B Stack, E Daly, S O’Reilly, C O’Gorman,
M Kelly, C O’Reilly,
T O’Sullivan.

Subs: R
Curtain for M Stack (44min).

Referee: MJ
O’Keeffe (Dromtariffe)

Thomas Barrett
(Donoughmore Selector)

For Donoughmore
selector Thomas Barrett, the Evening Echo senior
championship starts
from the next round on due to the back door
system for all contenders.

“To be honest,
the championship will start from the next round
on. We were missing some
very good players – Rena Buckley and Mary O’Connor
and with those girls
it might have been a different story”.
But Barrett is
well aware his team weren’t firing on all cylinders
and that improvements
will have to be made if they are to reach their
tenth county final.

“We can play
a lot better than we did. We played about 85%
of our best. If we are to win
the county and go further we need to up our
game by a further 15%. But I believe the
team are well capable of improving by that 15%.
Rockchapel are
a very good side and I expect to see them go
very far in the championship
again”.

Donal Kelly(Rockchapel Selector)

With the majority
of his usual offensive unit missing, Rockchapel
selector Donal
Kelly was reasonably content with his teams
performance. “We didn’t
do too bad in the first half. We were missing
a lot of our top players through
injury and work commitments and that cost us
in the second half. “That aside
we’re happy with the overall performance. Donoughmore
are a class outfit. “Everyone
did well out there in fairness and gave a 110%.
That’s all we asked.We knew we were
up against it tonight but they’re county and
Munster champions for a
reason.
“Hopefully
we’ll meet them again and hopefully it’ll be
in a county final and we’ll
see how things go at that stage”.

PLAYER OF THE
MATCH

Aisling O’Connor
(Donoughmore)
Caused huge problems
for the Rockchapel defence. She was extremely
accurate between
the posts finishing top-scorer with 1-5 while
also assisting others.
Characteristically
Aisling hounded the out-coming defence causing
a number of Rockchapel
turnovers.

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