Mungret St. Pauls 1-17 Kildimo Pallaskenry 1-16
The Limerick Motor Centre sponsored Mungret St. Pauls Premier Intermediate Hurlers commenced their championship campaign against Kildimo in Clarina on July 24th 2020.

In front of a reduced crowd due to Covid capacity regulations, both teams had a nervous start and each conceded numerous frees with the teams exchanging points from placed balls, Paul O’Brien with the Mungret St. Pauls scores. The teams settled into their games with Mungret St. Pauls Liam Harrington receiving a well placed Conor O’Brien puckout in the 12th minute to point from play. As the referee blew for a water break on the 15th minute, Mungret trailed by a point, 6 points to 5. The use of water breaks has resulted in matches being split essentially into 4 quarters. Mungret St. Pauls rallied and points from play for Niall Mulcahy and Eoin O’Doherty leveled the scores for a period but Mungret St. Pauls still trailed by a point at half time, 0-11 to 0-10.

There was a spattering of rain at half time which resulted in a slippy playing surface for both teams. Paul O’Brien scored 4 points from frees within the first 6 minutes of the second half bringing Mungret St. Pauls into the lead. Brian O’Meara a half time substitute took a well taken score from play on his championship debut drawing a big cheer from the bench and crowd for the young man from the Mounteen. Within a minute Kildimo Pallas had Darren O’Connell bearing down on their goal and he hit the back of the net. The teams exchanged points but Paul O’Brien found the net directly from a sideline after an error from the opposition goalie in the last play before the water break, teams level 1-14 a piece at the break in play. As Mungret St. Pauls emerged for the last quarter, their back line came to the fore and Brian Barry, Ronan Kirby and Conor Flahive put in immense work to gain the upper hand and nullify the Kildimo Pallas forward line and supply Shane Barry in the half forward line to set up attacks further up the pitch. The final quarter became a tense affair and was quite low scoring as the teams squared up for a final push. It was a Mungret St. Pauls man who emerged from the crowd with the ball, Rory Duff splitting the posts with the final puck of the game to snatch victory against our neighbours. The Mungret St. Pauls men did their parish proud and while there will be a few sore bodies tomorrow we look forward to the next group game against Bruree next Saturday.

Team: Conor O’Brien, Conor Flahive, Ronan Kirby, Eoghan Mulcahy, Conor Hellewell, Brian Barry, Liam Harrington (0-2), Rory Duff (0-1), Eoin O’Doherty (0-1), Shane Barry, Cian O’Brien (C), Niall Mulcahy (0-3), Paul O’Brien (1-8 all placed balls), Mike Mullins, Brendan Giltenane (0-1). Subs Used: Brian O’Meara (0-1), Daniel Larkin, Kieran O’Dowd Subs not used: Louis Dee, David Bridgeman, Dec Browne, Darragh O’Brien, Barry O’Grady, Pa Begley

Management: Seanie Barry, Liam Cronin, Paul Harman, John Van Veen, Ger Keane, Brian Mullane, Killian Stockil, John Moriarty, Dan O’Brien, Donal Browne Photos on our facebook page by CLICKING HERE

Don't forget to go to LimerickGAA tv to watch the match again, to see our men put up a tough fight to take the win with just one point.

Please CLICK HERE for the link to access the game