Division 1B
Breaffy 2-12
Castlebar 2-11
Mike Finnerty
Breaffy
DESPITE their almost total midfield dominance and racking up 2-11 from play, Breaffy still had to withstand a dramatic late Castlebar Mitchels rally before hanging on for a narrow victory on Sunday morning.
Jim O’Shea’s side did more than enough to win their second match in Division 1B and looked very impressive for long spells. However, Mitchels never let their neighbours get out of sight and Peter Ford, Tommy O’Malley and company will have been heartened by their team’s spirited late revival.
On the evidence of this game though, Breaffy are much further advanced in their preparations for the cut and thrust of championship. Their three-pronged approach around the middle (Seamus O’Shea and Finín Canavan bolstered by centre-half forward Aidan O’Shea) meant they had a monopoly on primary possession all afternoon and their quick, mobile forwards did the rest.
However, the ‘big three’ set the tone from the start with O’Shea, the younger, putting in a man of the match performance and giving the highly-rated Eoin O’Reilly a torrid time. The towering Canavan also put in a serious shift and smacked over three long-range points from play for good measure. Seamus O’Shea worked hard, as usual, and was easy to pick out as a ‘county man’.
Castlebar’s Barry Moran also made his mark after being brought on at half-time. The Mayo panellist scored 1-3 from play and looked capable of causing more damage if he got possession. Ironically, that was Mitchels’ single biggest problem; they couldn’t get enough ball into Moran and his impressive side-kick Neil Douglas who scored six points (three from play) and continues to look like a real talent.
On the topic of Mayo players, the rehabilitating Tom Cunniffe (a half-back by trade) never got going and failed to make much impression at centre-forward for Castlebar in this, just his second game in twelve months.
Cunniffe and the majority of his team-mates (with the honourable exception of the busy and dangerous Neil Douglas) were peripheral figures in the first half as Breaffy set about building up their 1-6 to 0-3 lead at the break.
Centre-back Micheál Jennings joined the attack to fire in the goal superbly on seven minutes and points rained over from the excellent Matthew Conroy (2), Finín Canavan (2), Ronan Conway and Colm Lyons.
Most of the ammunition for these scores was supplied by the O’Shea brothers whose only problems came from some big hits (some legitimate, some not so legitimate) that were delivered by opponents. At this stage though it’s all in a day’s work for the gargantuan duo.
Midway though the second half the game seemed to be meandering to a fairly inevitable conclusion as Breaffy led by 1-9 to 0-6; however, a goal from Barry Moran after Neil Douglas had skinned David Gavin and cracked a shot off the post threw Mitchels’ a lifeline.
But just as Castlebar were contemplating their next move the elusive Ronan Conway replied with a crucial point at the other end to restore the locals’ four point cushion.
There were 51 minutes on the clock when Breaffy looked to have finally put the game to bed as sub’ Peter Dravins was grounded in the square and Micheál Jennings stepped to smack the resultant penalty past Ciaran Naughton. At 2-10 to 1-7, all seemed lost for Mitchels.
To their credit though they kept plugging away and outscored the winners by 1-4 to 0-2 from there to the finish; Barry Moran looking sharp and snaffling a couple of points, Eamonn Tiernan scoring a goal with a thunderous shot from an acute angle, and the impressive Richie Feeney posting the last score of an eventful, entertaining game.
Breaffy
R Hennelly; K Scahill, B Jordan, D Gavin; G Jennings, M Jennings (2-0, 1-0 pen), E Conroy (0-1); S O’Shea (0-1), F Canavan (0-3); M Conroy (0-2), A O’Shea, R Martyn; R Conway (0-2), C Lyons (0-1), A Durcan (0-1, 1f).
Subs used: P Dravins (0-1) for Scahill (inj); D Jennings for Lyons;
Castlebar
C Naughton; R Feeney (0-1), A Feeney, B Hennelly; A Roche, E Reilly, D Newcombe; D Sloyan, G McDonagh; S Hopkins (0-1), T Cunniffe, N Lydon; K Filan, A Walsh, N Douglas (0-6, 3fs).
Subs used: S Fitzmaurice for Sloyan; R Burke for A Feeney; B Moran (1-3) for Filan; E Tiernan (1-0) for Lydon.
Referee: V Neary (Bonniconlon)
