Wolfe Tones Vs Yorkshire Emeralds 09/08/14
Saturday saw our hurlers make the long trip to Leeds to take on Yorkshire Emeralds in the second round of the Lancashire County championship. In what can only be described as a game of two halves.
The Yorkshire side came out of top in the opening exchanges and had 1-3 racked up before Tones through Dathai registered their first point of the day, this seemed to lift the Tones' men as Joe Malone added two more points before the Leeds men hit a purple patch scoring another 2-3 to lead the game 0-3 to 3-6 with 10 minutes remaining in the half. Tones realising there were in trouble made the required positional changes and introduced Noel into the game which in turn had the desired effect as the finished the half stronger with corner forwards Cleary and Kyle grabbing a goal each before Cleary wrapped up the Tones scoring in the first half with a well taken point to leave the tones trailing 2-4 to 4-7 at the break.
The second half started as the first did with YE grabbing an early goal and things started looking bleak for the boys from Liverpool, however lie down they didn't!! The new look full back line of Finn, Dwaine and Carey came to life and began snuffing out the threat of the big Leeds full forward, which in turn saw, better and more regular balls getting into the forwards with Noel (2) Kyle (2) and Malone (1) all chipping in with points.
The Tones' half backs and midfield now got going with James Dathai and Dobbs excelling and Bomber chipping in with a point to give the Liverpool lads some hope of a comeback at the half way stage, 2-10 to 5-8. Wave after wave on Tones attacks resulted in a 21 yard free which Dathai stepped up to take and duly drilled the sliotar into the top corner, from the puck out Gracie in midfield picked out Cleary again who made no mistake in banging in his second of the game to bring Tones to within a point, YE opened up a 2 point lead before Cleary popped up again, reacting quickest to a saved shot to poke the ball home to give the Tones a one point lead with minutes remaining.
Kyle and Dathai added a point each to send the Tones up by 3 going into the dying stages, YE responded and attack after attack yielded nothing with Stephen Hennessy in goals pulling off some magnificent saves time and time again. Try as they may the Tones lads just couldn't hold out and a scramble in the goal mouth resulted in a goal for the Yorkshire men to draw the game level. WT 5-13 YE 6-10
Tones Team and scores
Hennessy, Kelly, Carey, G.Coughlan, Finn, Brown, Dobbs, Gracie, Bomber 0-1, Doyle 1-3, Dathai 1-3, Malone 0-3, Cleary 3-1, Kavanagh, Quinn. Subs. Burns 0-2 for Coughlan 18min. Hayes for Kavanagh 45min. O Driscoll for Brown 51min.