Shels newly promoted senior football team met Starlights in the first round of the league at Bellfield Saturday last
Despite conceding the first point, Shels equalised soon after and forged a lead which they enjoyed for the majority of the game. Unfortunately, a poor scoring second half and a late goal from Starlights with 10 mins to go followed by 2 points in succession left the game on a score line of 1-6 to 1-8 in favour to the opposition.
Terry Gainfort was first on the board for the Shels with David Kehoe pointing soon after, Terry then converted a free and when good team work put Aidan Murphy through in front of the goal he laid the ball off to the unmarked Terry Gainfort who needed no prompting to put the ball in the back of the net. Starlights got their 2nd point at this stage before Stephen Banville added a point to the Shels tally to leave the half time score at 1-4 to 0-2 in favour of Shels.
Aidan Murphy got Shels off to a great start early in 2nd half with a superb point, but unfortunately Starlights had 4 points unanswered in this period. Terry Gainfort stopped the rot with what was to be the Shels last point of the day, when Starlights scored a goal first to equalise the match and then 2 more insurance points to leave the over the water side 2 points adrift at the final whistle.
Shels were forced to play without the services of Co. Senior footballers Brian Malone and David Walsh. Also Derek Walsh, Barry O’Connor, Clive Lawlor, Cathal Gaule & Colin Redmond amongst others were unavailable either through injury or illness. However manager Tom Tynan still had no problem fielding a strong and competitive team for this first round challenge. On the day, Terry Gainfort, Ibar Murphy, Ciaran O’ Shaughnessy and Aidan Murphy were on top form and the work rate of the team augurs well for the coming year.
Team: 1 Paudie McMahon, 2 Brian O’Shaughnessy, 3 Emmet O’Leary, 4 Marc Walsh, 5 Niall Kelly, 6 Ciaran O’Shaughnessy, 7 Adrian Veale, 8 Ibar Murphy, 9 Gareth Dunne, 10 Alan Griffith, 11 Aidan Murphy, 12 Conor Walsh, 13 David Kehoe, 14 Stephen Banville, 15 Terry Gainfort.
Subs introduced, Tommy Barron, Graeme Power, Vinny Parker.