The senior hurlers lined out in the championship semi-final in Páirc Uí Chaoimh, having bypassed the quarter-finals, thanks to two wins against Mallow and Cloyne, followed by a narrow loss to Fermoy.  There was a sense of optimism that this team was very well prepared and good enough to progress to the final.

Newcestown opened the scoring, playing with the aid of the breeze, courtesy of an early free.  They then goaled in the fourth minute with the Carrigtwohill defence in a bit of disarray.  Another free three minutes later put the Carberry outfit five points clear.  Seán Walsh lofted a good effort over the bar from the left wing and seconds later, he did the same from the other wing.  Newcestown scored their first point from play before Pat O’Sullivan collected a Newcestown line ball, surged upfield and landed a super strike over the crossbar from outside of 45m.  Justin Oke and Liam Gosnell linked up well to supply Walsh and he fired the ball between the posts from 65m out on the right wing.  Newcestown pointed to make it 0-04 to 1-04 midway through the half.  Seán de Búrca fed a direct ball up the middle to Justin Oke and he raised a white flag from 50m.  Newcestown converted a free.  Neil Coughlan battled to win possession, ‘Brick-flicked’ the sliotar to Justin and Oke scored his second point from 60m.  Tomás Hogan played a diagonal ball into James Mulcahy who cut in and riffled the ball between the posts.  Mul continued Carrig’s purple patch with a lovely over-the-shoulder effort from the right-hand wing.  The game was now level, 0-08 to 1-05 on 23 minutes.  Justin directed a good ball through the Seán de Búrca and de Búrca put it over the bar.  Carrig worked the ball out from the full-back line via Pat Sull, Aaron Walsh Barry and Daniel Murnane.  Murnane played a ‘one-two’ with Aaron who struck a huge effort between the posts from the middle of the field to register five unanswered points from Carrigtwohill.  Newcestown got the final score of the half to make it 0-10 to 1-06 at the short whistle.

Unfortunately, the beginning of the second half mirrored the first one, with Carrig slow out of the traps.  Newcestown struck an unanswered four points in the opening eight minutes, with Carrig errors being a contributory factor.  The Carbery side were then awarded a penalty on 40 minutes, which they goaled from to go six points clear, despite a good diving effort from Shane Devlin; he got his bas to the low struck ball but the power of the shot was too much.  Seán Walsh converted a free a minute later.  Brendan Twomey raced up the left touchline and struck a beauty over the bar from right out on the sideline.  Pádraic Hogan passed to his brother Tomás and Mossy launched a ‘Garryowen’ into the Newcestown penalty area.  Séan Walsh judged the flight of it and half-volleyed the sliotar as it landed to the back of the net to make it a one point game (1-12 to 2-10) midway through the half.  Newcestown struck three points (two frees) in the next ten minutes to Carrig’s single free (Seán Walsh).  Tomás Hogan played a diagonal ball into the path of James Mul who struck another sublime score over-the-shoulder out near the right hand sideline.  Another Newcestown free on 59 minutes made it a one goal game again.  Shane Devlin pulled off a fine save in added time, as Carrig tried in vain to get an equalising goal.  Newcestown hung on for a deserving win after what was a frustrating hour for Carrigtwohill.

This was a very disappointing result for Carrigtwohill and the consensus was that the game was there for the winning.  A below-par ten minute spell at the start of each half, in which Carrig conceded an unanswered 2-6 proved to be too costly.  A special mention must go to veteran corner back, Pat O’Sullivan who was this writer’s Carrigtwohill man-of-the-match.  Pat Sull had a super hour in the blue and gold, despite having a foot injury and being ‘in a boot’ for most of the four weeks between the Fermoy match and the semi-final.

The club wishes to express its sincere gratitude to Frank Flannery, his entire management and backroom team for the absolutely enormous effort that was put in since the start of last November.  The thoroughness and diligence that was applied by the management and backroom team has not previously been experienced in Carrigtwohill.  The team showed steady improvement and progress, in no small part thanks to Frank’s stewardship, infectious energy and raw passion.

Carrigtwohill Team (as per the positions they lined out in, not as numbered): Shane Devlin; Neil Coughlan, Aaron Walsh Barry (0-1), Pat O’Sullivan (0-1); Pádraic Hogan, Seán de Búrca (0-1), Daniel Murnane; Justin Oke (0-2), Jay Horgan; Seán Walsh (1-5; 0-2f), Cian O’Riordan, Tomás Hogan; James Mulcahy (0-3), Liam Gosnell, Cillian Barry.  Subs Used: Brendan Twomey (0-1), Liam O’Sullivan, Ronan Power, David Joseph, Séamus Roche.  Other Subs: David Rooney, Seán O’Sullivan, Seán Brennan, Cormac Flynn, Seán Ahern, Mark O’Connor, Liam Scriven, Daragh Hannigan, Joel Joseph.

Management: Frank Flannery (manager), Niall Kidney, Michael Boland, Niall McCarthy, Clive Cremen.

Referee: Wayne King (Banteer).