St Annes Defeat Naomh Olaf By The Narrowest Of Margins

Match Report By Kevin Biranne and Pat Kinsella

The Naomh Olaf adult Div 3 team continued their preparation for the coming season with a challenge game away to St Annes in Bohernabreena. The game was played in very wet and windy conditions under the grey backdrop of mist covered Mount Seskin. The home team got off to a great start with the aid of a gale force wind and were 1-3 to the good after only 5 minutes of play. Naomh Olaf then had a long spell of superiority but were unable to avail of the many chances until Padraic Lucey opened the scoring with a well taken point from play. This was quickly followed by two more points from Fergal McCann and Eoin Kinsella. However, St Annes, assisted by wind advantage soon regained the initiative and added a further two goals and three points without reply from the visitors. The half time score of 3-6 to 0-3 in favour of St Annes left the scoreboard looking very uneven indeed. Naomh Olaf now had a mountain to climb.  Early in the second half, St Annes still had the upper hand and added a further 1-1 to leave Olaf’s trailing by a massive 16 points five minutes into the half . The mountain had grown even higher with the visitors’ prospects now looking very bleak indeed. But Naomh Olaf were not going to roll over. Suddenly they took control of the game and put in a brilliant performance for a good 25 minute period. They clocked up score after score with some excellent points from both play and placed balls. Eoin Kinsella in particular showed excellent skill for much of this period when excellent teamwork fed him well placed ball after ball which he converted time and again spurring the team on.  For a while it looked like Naomh Olaf might pull off the impossible when Simon Hickey and Johnny Tyrell added two well executed goals.  However, despite dominating for most of the second half, the mountain had grown too high during the first 40 minutes of play.  Amazingly, when the final whistle blew, Naomh Olaf were only one point behind with St Annes scoring the winning point in injury time .  How different the story might have been, had one or two of  those missed first half chances been converted. 

The final Score was 4-9 (21) to 2-14 (20). This was a very good workout on a horrible day for football and should stand this promising Naomh Olaf team in good stead when the season gets underway.  

Scorers for Naomh Olaf :  S Hickey 1-1, J Trrell 1-0, E Kinsella 0-8, F McMann 0-2, D Byrne 0-1, C Lucey 0-1 , S Whyte 0-1

                                                    Naomh Olaf Team

                                                                           C Daughton

                                                D Egan                  K Birrane              T O’Hara

                                                B Gaughran        C Sobolewski     S Whyte (0 – 1)

                                                                D Maxwell           F McCann (0 -2)

                                                C Lucey (0 – 1)     B Begley             D Byrne (0 -1f)

                                                J Tyrell (1 – 0)     E Kinsella (0 – 8(3f))  J Lee

                                                                       Substitutions:                           

                                               C Kyne Delaney for B Begley, injured, (10 minutes)

                                               S Hickey (1 – 1) for J Lee, half-time

                                               R Quinn for J Tyrell, (50 minutes)

                                               P Gordon for T O’Hara (60 minutes)