Tralee J2’s travelled to near neighbours and local
rivals Castleisland for the re-fixed game on Sunday morning where nothing but
local pride was a stake as Tralee had long since topped their section. With
Tralee having meted out a comprehensive win in the first meeting of these side
“The Island” had all the motivation and somethey needed to get up for this game where Tralee appeared to have turned
up making the grave mistake of expecting to win.
Island carried us up the road to their temporary
overflow pitch as their first XV had a vital Junior Cup game on that afternoon
Joe McCarthy struggled to find this ground but was delighted to see he could
make use of the native flora and fauna for his St.Bridget Cross making
enterprise. But the excuses stop there the pitch may have been narrow but the
day was dry and Tralee in the end failed to find a way to play to the
conditions at hand. Island signalled their intent early with some hard hit and
a well excauted drop goal to go 3 points up. Tralee however responded well to
this early setback as Joe McCarthy was finding space around the fringes as
snuck though the cover to off-load to Terence Liston who showed good pace a
power to barge in under the posts. Gordon Kerins easily added the extras to
give Tralee a 7-3 lead, unfortunately from here on in thing just got worse.
Tralee had the measure of Island out wide and were competing well up front but
too often the ball was spread too early and Island easily flooding the midfield
on the narrow pitch to negate the Tralee attack. Island who had rarely
threatened out wide managed to capitalise a defensive mix-up by Laide and
Kerins to score what was to be a decisive try that they failed to convert to
leave the score 8-7 to “Island” at the break.
Tralee lost both Ger Arthurs and Mike Lyons to injury
for the second half but both Morris O’Mahony and Alan Locke acquitted
themselves well when coming on. In fact Locke was terribly unlucky not finish a
fine back line move early on in the second half, the theme of the half was in
fact waste and panic on Tralee’s part as again and again the final passwas not
given or wrong decision made. Kerins did manage to get Tralee ahead mid-way
though the half with a penalty under the posts but immediately Tralee conceded
a penalty at the other end to hand the advantage back to Island. And this time
they didn’t leave it good inspired by the old head of Bill Horgan Island closed
out the game a deserved their win in the end.
Tralee now await the draw for the next round of the
league this week but will need a marked improvement in their decision making
and all round stlye to play to compete at the next level of this league. On the
day stand outs for Tralee were Joe McCarthy and Jason McCannon who’s high
fielding had to be seen to be believed!
Team: S Coffey, M. McCarthy,
A. Sheehy, M Lyons, Bryan O'Mahony, Sean Hurley, Dean Summerhayes, Jeremy Walsh, J McCarthy, T Liston, G. Kerins,
B. Laide, G Arthurs, G McNamara, M Deane.
Sub used – E. Scott, J.McCannon, M O'Mahony, K Chute, A Locke.
