Two goals in two minutes at the midway point in the second half booked Hollymount-Carramore’s place in the semi-final of this years Mayo GAA Intermediate Championship in Elverys MacHale Park on Saturday evening.
In what was a largely forgettable encounter, the South Mayo men struggled for a large part of the game to break down Parke’s defence and shot themselves in the foot by kicking wide after wide. Tom Connelly’s side kicked 12 wides over the hour and it was only after Ian Costello grabbed their second goal with a fantastic finish did they really start to control the game fully, despite their dominance of possession of the ball.
It took ten minutes for the deadlock to be broken in the game and it came from the boot of Costello with a well taken score after his side had missed a few shots at the target already. Parke levelled the game up two minutes later through a free from Pat Lynch, but that was to be the only score they would get in the entire first half, yet the still only went in trailing by four points at the turn around.
Darren Coen kicked two frees in the 19th and 21st minute to stretch his sides lead out to 0-3 to 0-1, but Hollymount-Carramore’s wayward shooting was totting up on the wide count already. One man who was impressing though was full-back Darren McHugh who put in a strong showing in the full back line keeping the Parke attack at bay with some strong fielding and tough tackling. Alan Fahy and Ian Costello kicked two more points for last years beaten finalists before half time sending them in leading by 0-5 to 0-1.
The second half opened Pat Lynch cutting the gap to three points with his second converted free of the day three minutes in. Eight minutes later Hollymount-Carramore almost got in for a goal when Robert Molloy got in behind the Parke cover only for Fintan McHale to get a foot on the ball and take the sting out of the shot allowing John Cloherty to clear it off the line. Darren Coen kicked his third point of the day to stretch the gap back out to four points on the 14 minute mark and less than 60 seconds later the decisive score of the game arrived.
Kevin Ferrick dropped in a long ball on top of the Parke goalmouth, Stephen Coen out jumped Fintan McHale in Park goal and palmed the ball to the net to put his side seven points clear and kill the game off as a contest. Two minutes later Costello drilled home a superb goal to wrap things up for sure. From then on out it was just a matter of closing the game out which Hollymount-Carramore did with ease adding on three more points from Ian Costello. While they have booked their place in the semi-final, the South Mayo men will know that they will seriously have to up their game if they are going to go one better than they did in this competition last year.
Scores
Hollymount-Carramore: I Costello (1-5, 145 ), D Coen (0-3, 3f ), S Coen (1-0 ), A Fahey (0-1 ).
Parke: P Lynch (0-2,2f ), C Kerins (0-2 )
Hollymount-Carramore: N Campbell; D Feerick, D McHugh, R Connelly; P Ferrick, K McNamara, R Molloy; A Fhey, S Coen; K Feerick, I Costello, K Costello; C Keane, D Coen, C Connolly. Subs: D Costello, D Kelly, E Maloney, C Heneghan, O Gill, A Canny
Parke: F McHale; B Moran, D Lavelle, J Cloherty; P Dunne, M Marley, P Lynch; D Durkan, R Comer; D Hopkins, R Carolan, S Corley; C Kerins, D Neary, S McHale. Subs: M Loftus, A Neary, J O’Boyle, H Flynn, J Gillespie.
Ref: J Glavey (Aghamore )
