UNDER 15 HURLING

Warrenpoint U15 Hurlers take the honours in Shamrocks Tournament By Damien McConville (+ Conor Keenan)

Congratulations to our U15 hurlers after a successful blitz tournament on Saturday past. Warrenpoint came out on top after two hard fought victories against very accomplished sides in Clonduff and hosts Newry Shamrocks.
The format of the games was two 10minute halves which meant that inevitably goals would go a long way to winning games, and this proved to be the case for Warrenpoint.

First up for us was last year’s U14 Feile winning side, Clonduff. We expected a tough game and we got one. A fast paced first half saw Warrenpoint struggle to get scores on the board as Clonduff matched us throughout the field. It fell to Jamie Grant to register the first score of the match with a well taken point way out on the left hand touchline. The match was tight around the midfield area for the next 5 mins and this coupled with some good defending by both teams meant that the next score was a Clonduff equaliser two minutes before half time. The introduction of James Delahunt to the game allowed us to reshuffle our team and just as level scores at half time looked likely Conleth Conway suddenly came to life and hit 1.1 to leave the  half time score 1.2 to 0.1 in our favour.

Again in the second half we opened the scoring with Conleth continuing his fine form with a well struck point. Clonduff had come out with a greater purpose to their play and replied almost immediately. This was however the last score we would concede in the match thanks to fine defending from Stephen O’Hare and Niall Cox coupled with Jamie driving us on in midfield.

Jason Gray also began to establish more of an influence on proceedings and started to open up Clonduff's defence with direct passing, including one pass to James when we could have swore that James wasn’t even there.
With the game still very much in the balance Sam Conway broke through for a well taken and deserved goal, this was quickly followed up by a second Conleath goal and a well taken point by the ever improving Thomas O’ Hare. Credit must go to our two U14’s Oggy and Daryl who were playing their second match of the day after county trials that morning and to Gary Mc Shane who worked tirelessly despite having a slight injury. Final score in the first match: Warrenpoint 3.4 Clonduff 0.2

Game 2: Warrenpoint VS Newry Shamrocks

It was both mentally and physically tough for the players to prepare for our second match given that we only had a 5 minute break before taking to the field against Shamrocks. After the high of beating Clonduff the players and managers were brought back down to earth with a bang inside the first half of what turned out to be a pulsating tie. Shamrocks started the game at a frantic pace and quickly opened up a 2 point lead, and we knew we were in for a game. But for some good defending by Jo Devlin and Colin O’Hare as well as intelligent goalkeeping by Daryl Freer we would have been further behind. As the half moved on we started to come more into the game with Jamie and Conleth both coming close to scores. But just when we looked to have weathered the early storm disaster struck as Shamrocks hit a goal and a point in quick succession. We hung on for another minute as the half time whistle brought welcome relief to a rattled team. Half Time Warrenpoint 0.0 Shamrocks 1.3

Now we had a chance for some water and a reshuffle of the team before we set about overcoming a large deficit especially when we only had 10 mins in which to do so.

The second half couldn’t have started any better as Conleath made amends for his earlier miss with 2 goals inside the opening 2 minutes to bring the sides level for the first time in the match. Shamrocks showed their strength as they landed the next 2 points to again open up a lead, at this stage it would have been easy for us to lie down but credit to the players as they raised their game to the level we knew they could. First Jason split through the Shamrocks defence on a mazy solo run that resulted in a finely struck goal. This was followed immediately by another glorious point from Jamie and with the game nearing its end Conleth spotted the keeper off his line as he sent a deft lob over his head and into the net to complete his hat-trick and a great comeback.

The management and players congratulate our goal scorers but as well as those mentioned already we must highlight the performances of James Delahunt and Thomas O Hare, our U14 contingent Lewis, Daniel, Tiernan and Corey and newcomers Sam and Stephen.

Final score Warrenpoint 4.1 Shamrocks 1.5

We now progress to meet Carryduff in the semi final on Saturday 24th May in Castlewellan.