Ballyclough prevail in Junior B encounter
August 09, 2025
Ballyclough were to win out this Junior B game, played in Clyda last night, coming from behind, and showing the greater determination and resolve over the hour to win, by two points, in the end.
Killavullen owned the ball in the opening ten minutes, and raced into the lead with a nice point, scored by Mikey O Connor. With a lot of possessions, and the ball scarcely getting out beyond midfield, Padraig Cronin tacked over a second point for us. Seamus O Mahony scored a lovely 2-point score for us, from the edge of the large arc, and when he repeated the same feat, some couple of minutes later, we were six points to the good, and cruising, and only eight minutes gone, on the clock
Ballyclough though, to their credit figured it out around midfield and came much more into the game, and brought a good, point blank save from Darragh in our goals. Ballyclough got their opening score from a free, in the 12th minute of the game. If one save from Darragh was good, the next was sensational, and he somehow managed to get a strong palm to a ball, that seemed destined to the top right hand corner of the net, but acrobatically, with a full length diving save, that drew collectives intakes of breath from all at the game, he forced the ball behind for a 45 metre shot. Ballyclough did score a point from the 45, when we were caught napping, and they played it short, and back to the kicker, to score. That scorer was the Ballyclough club chairman, in Jason Clifford. Now was the time for Ballyclough to gain ascendancy and they scored 3 points in a row, with the pick of those, being a fine score, from their full forward, Sean Smyth, and he off balance before the break to leave the score at the interval, 0-06 to 0-05.
On the resumption, the same evergreen Sean Smyth scored a cracking goal, when he ran on powerfully to a through ball, and billowed the net, giving Darragh no chance. We were living dangerously, and we were thankful for fine defensive play from Tomas Fennell, Niall Carroll and Joe Cagney in particular when Ballyclough threatened to run away with the game. Padraig Looney scored a booming long range point, but he had stepped inside the arc, and it only counted for one score, but it was our first score in some 25 minutes of football. It was now our turn to force a good save courtesy of Colm Hayes from the Ballyclough netminder and Ballyclough got another point, from Sean Smyth again. Padraig Looney was threatening scores all night, and he scored a two-point score to bring us level, in the sixth minute of a lively second half. We took the lead again, with a Padraig Cronin point and added to that, with another from Mikey O Connor, in the 9th minute. We got lucky when a high booming free, from Stephen Finn from Ballyclough was just kept out from underneath the cross bar by a combination of Billy Norris and Darragh, and then saw the close in shot crash off the underside of the cross bar and into the grateful hands of Barry Cotter and away. Ballyclough scored a close in free, and another point from Mr. Smyth to bring parity to the game again, in the 15th minute.
Sean Woulfe replaced Jack Martin and Seamus Cronin replaced Barry Cotter but Ballyclough regained the lead with a fine point from play, scored by Barry Morrissy, and then went a further point ahead, with a lovely curling effort from Stephen Finn. Padraig Looney scored again for us, in the 24th minute of the half, and though we tried manfully, we failed to add to our tally, while Ballyclough had the last score with four minutes to go.
Disappointing result from a Killavullen perspective when, on paper, we had a strong team on the field, but we found scores hard to come by, and went long periods of the game, without scoring, which was ultimately our nemesis.
The team was;
- Darragh O Connor
- Barry Cotter
- Billy Norris
- Joe Cagney
- Tomas Fennell
- Eoghan Buckley
- Niall Carroll
- Padraig Looney (0-04, 0-01F, 1 x 2 pts)
- Mickey O Connor (0-02)
- Colm Hayes
- Seamus O Mahony (0-04, 2 x 2 pts)
- Padraig Cronin (0-02)
- Jack Martin
- Jack O Connor
- David Walsh
The substitutes were;
- Sean Woulfe for Jack Martin
- Seamus Cronin for Barry Cotter