On Saturday, 14th of June we travelled to London GAA HQ in Ruislip to take on Shalloe Pearses in the 5th round of our division 3 league campaign.
With the injury list mounting, we went into this game missing a few of our regular starters over the past few weeks; this provided a big opportunity for lads looking to break into the team and put their hand up for selection with Championship just around the corner.
With many players trying out new positions and others getting their first start of the season; we got off to a nervy start and took our time to get settled into the game. With a strong breeze to aid them, Pearses took full advantage and scored a couple of quick early points to ease themselves into the game.
For the first quarter, struggled to get good ball to our inside forward line and it took almost 15 minutes to register our first score, leaving us trailing 0-5 to 0-1. Towards the end of the half, the supply of ball into the forwards improved tenfold but lack of composure caused us to increase our wide count to 9 before the interval. Some soft frees and loose marking allowed the opposition to keep their scoreboard ticking over and with a couple of minutes left in the half, we trailed 0-8 to 0-2. Only for some important interceptions from Ronan Campfield and Nigel Drew, as well as some solid goalkeeping from Dave Moran, there may have been a lot more daylight between the sides.
As we approached the interval, we desperately needed to add to our tally to give us something to build on for the second half. Then, up popped the nippy corner forward, Stevie Perry, with a timely goal to bring us to within 3 points of the lead.
With the wind at our backs and the sun in our eyes as we headed into the second half, we knew that we were well in with a shout of winning this game but we needed to iron out the mistakes of the opening 30 minutes: We needed to show much more composure in front of goal and defensively, we could not allow to give the Shalloe Pearse half forwards too much room to run at us.
A straight positional switch between Sean O’Carroll coming out to centre forward Joe McMahon going in to operate at the edge of the square proved crucial to the Éire Óg comeback.
McMahon got us off to a dream start in the second half by finding the net within the opening few minutes. We had now drawn level and defensively, we were a lot meaner than we had been in the first half.
The speed of Niall Murray, Adam McAvinney and Liam Dunne was now proving very hard for Pearses to handle as we moved the ball at pace from defence to attack.
With points being exchanged by both teams mid-way through the second half, Pearses got in to score a goal that put them 3 points up with 15 minutes left to play. The opposition then came at us with a flurry of attacks on our goal: Only for some fine point-blank saves from Dave Moran as well as a very important block right in front of goal by substitute, Damian Shannon, Shalloe Pearses could have put the game beyond our reach.
The Éire Óg response was admirable: We got important scores from Sean O’Carroll and goal from Barry Meehan put us in the ascendancy. More importantly, we conceded only one point in the last quarter and as we drew level, ill-discipline crept into our opponents play as they seemed to lose their heads and concede some silly frees. As we began to gather momentum; Joe McMahon was fouled cynically as he went through on goal, the referee had no hesitation in calling for a penalty. Joe then calmly slotted it beyond the keeper to put the game to bed.
The game ended 4-09 to 1-10. Our second half display is surely something that we will hope to build on for the rest of our season. We out-scored our opponents by 3-7 to 1-2 in the second 30 minutes which is encouraging with Championship just around the corner.
With a lot of players coming onto the team yesterday and putting in solid performances, the management will will be delighted to have such a selection headache for the coming weeks (barring injuries).
In what was a fantastic all-round team performance on the day, its hard to pick out individual stand out performances but my man of the match on the day was Joe McMahon, his move into full forward in the second half proved vital to our comeback and to have a player so clinical in front of goal is a huge bonus to the Éire Óg armoury.
Next up is Thomas McCurtains on Thursday 19th June in Goodmayes as we hope to continue to build momentum with Championship approaching in a few weeks time.