Geraldines 1-14. Newtown Blues 0-8

A great performance in the second half of tonight’s division 4 game saw the Geraldines junior team secure their first victory of the season and helped relieve some of the pressure of the management team of Thornton Thornton Lynch McGorrian. Cracks had begun to emerge with the notable absence of Cathal O Brien from the management team for an as yet undisclosed flimsy reason.

The lads were nervous early on with inside forward Des Reenan kicking an array of wides with both feet from almost any angle. It took a point from man mountain full forward Paul Molloy to settle the team down . The accuracy of Conor Magowan kept the scoreboard ticking and some great defending from our full back line of John Pepper Paul Clarke and the very impressive Davey Norton meant we led 0-7 to 0-6 at the interval.

The management knew we had to kick on as it was unlikely too many of our lads had the energy to last the full 60 in the very warm conditions. Our midfield got on top with a mixture of youth & experience in Shane Thornton and Liam Cafferty. Their continuous movement created some good chances for their team mates and indeed saw Cafferty do really well to hit the goalkeeper when straight through. Patrick Craven then displayed some of his older brothers tenacity when he picked up a yellow for slobbering.
The turning point in the game came when attacking wingback David O Connell finished a fine Geraldines move that started with keeper Kearney and saw several Geraldines players involved before Ed Maguire passed to O Connell and he finished to the Blues net. This gave us some breathing space and the lads responded with some great scores from Cathal Purcell , Shane Rodgers and an exquisite score with the outside of the boot from centre half Kevin Pepper.
The introduction of Ciaran Peelo , Darren O Brien and David Donegan brought loads of experience and very little movement to an already static forward line.

All in All it was a good win and with the Brides beating St Pats in the other game keeps us firmly in contention .

The “Storm in a teacup” man of the match award this week went to Conor Magowan and he gets to buy all his teammates an ice cream after the next match.

Team. Darren Kearney Davy Norton Paul Clarke John Pepper David O Connell(1-00)Kevin Pepper(0-1) Patrick Craven ShaneThornton Liam Cafferty Edward Maguire Cathal Purcell(0-2) ShaneRogers(0-2) Des Reenan Paul Molloy(0-4) Conor Magowan (0-5) Subs Ciaran Peelo Darren O Brien David Donegan

Management: Alan Thornton Mark Thornton Mark McGorrian Colin Lynch & not Cathal OBrien. Director of Football Nicholas Mackin