Ballylongford 4 Samphires 6 – 10 goals exciting stuff indeed, not a game for the faint hearted. A very strong blew straight down the pitch and we had the advantage in the first half. It was important we established a lead as it was unlikely we would keep a clean sheet against that wind later. We had a dream start with Thomas Lenihan scoring after 2 minutes from a corner by Cormac O Brien. We doubled our lead 2 minutes when some good play by Sean Donnellan and Ciaran Carmody set Cormac to score from close range. We dominated for the rest of the first half and added to out total with Oisin O Brien and Sean Higgins adding to our total and we missed another few to boot. In the second half we conceded a goal straightaway even though our lads felt it was offside. Sean Higgins scored again for us to make it 5-1 and we took command again when we got our passing game going. Alan McElligott and Sean Donnellen were very good for us in the middle throughout, with Thomas playing a more offensive game. We got a bit lax in front of goal for 20 minutes and paid the price when Ballylongford scored a cracker with 15 minutes to go. We upped it again briefly and Oisin scored our 6th but we conceded 2 more in the last couple of minutes to leave it 6-4 to us. Bar the last few minutes our defence of Brian O’Regan, Antoin Stanton, Ossie Clifford, Podge O’Mahony and Carmo were very good and kept them at arms length from the goals throughout. Subs Christopher Murphy and David Lenihan did great work for us in the second half and without them we would have been in trouble. We wish Darren Chester, John Dillane, Bobby O Regan and Dara O’Connor speedy recoveries from their various injuries and ailments – we will need these lads as we head towards the business end of the season especially as we have lost one or 2 other strong players. Finally this is Ballylongford’s first year playing competitive soccer and they gave a good account of themselves. They never gave up and showed great spirit even when things went against them.