February 16, 2011
By Staff Reporter
Scoreline:
St. Barnabas 2-13
Tyrone 1-7
Last year’s Junior B champions, St. Barnabas, made a smooth transition to the A ranks, riding a great second half display to top Tyrone 2-13 to 1-7 Sunday at Gaelic Park.
Tyrone jumped out in front with points from Justin Murray and Ken Cox. If the newcomers were nervous their nerves soon settled when Johnathan Daly took advantage of poor Tyrone clearance, to find the Tyrone goal. Center forward Dave O’Halloran added a sweet left-footed point for Barnabas, but their led was short lived.
Brian McGarrity put one behind the Barnabas net minder and the Ulster side reclaimed the advantage. The exchanges were hard and the two teams were playing an entertaining brand of football. Barnabas’ hopes took a blow when midfielder Dave Garvey had to be helped off the pitch with an apparent ankle injury. Substitute Tom Kelly came into the forward line, causing a slight shuffle in the Barnabas line up.
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Justin Murray and midfielder Stephen Nixon added to the Tyrone score line, while for St. Barnabas O’Halloran, Sean Carbin, and Ronan Garvey added to their side’s tally, When the halftime horn sounded, there was nothing between them, 1-4 to 1-4.
O’Halloran and full forward Darren Meaney quickly pushed Barnabas ahead after the re-start, but Justin Murray’s free and a Ken Cox point from play soon equalized. In between Tyrone had a Justin Murray goal disallowed for a man in the square.
Barnabas pulled back ahead through a Ciaran Moyles point before landing a crushing blow. Darren Meaney intelligently broke the ball into Tom Kelly’s path, and Kelly promptly found the twines. Tom Nolan began to get a firm grip on the midfield area with O’Halloran and Ronan Garvey while the Barnabas halfback line, Tony Nolan, Ed Greenan and Brian Montgomery put the clamps on the Tyrone attack. St. Barnabas will be very pleased with their debut, while Tyrone will try to get more out of a potentially talented team.
Man of the match: Dave O’Halloran.
St. Barnabas: J.P. Kirwin, Brendan O’Sullivan, Sean Moyles, Pat Flynn, Tony Nolan, Ed Greenan, Brian Montgomery, Tom Nolan (0-2), Dave Garvey, Ronan Garvey (0-3), Dave O’Halloran (0-2), Ciaran Moyles (0-1), Johnathan Daly (1-2), Darren Meany (0-1), Sean Carbin (0-2), Sub Tom Kelly (1-0).
Tyrone: Shane O’Gallagher, Mark Daly, Aiden Traynor, Paddy Mullen, Martin McMahon, Gerald Flanagan, Damien Daly, Raymond Heagney, Stephen Nixon (0-1), Ken Cox (0-2), Justin Murray (0-4), Peter McNamee, Shane Devlin, Andy McEvoy, Brian McGarrity (1-0).