We played Askeaton in the third round of the West junior hurling championship in Knockaderry on Sunday night. After picking up a draw and a win in the first two rounds we needed a good result to guarantee our participation in the knock out stages.
Askeaton, with the benefit of the slight breeze, started the game in a flourish with a couple of well struck points and were moving the ball at speed from defence to their forwards, who appeared to be very sharp. We were struggling to keep pace and were fortunate with a couple of frees to keep in touch. A very well struck goal from Willie O’Meara for Askeaton opened a sizeable gap and we know knew we were in for a serious challenge. After a bout of pressure, Jason got a goal back for us and this closed the gap to two points. After this it was score for score over the remainder of the half and it finished Askeaton 1-12 Monagea 1-10
After conceding a soft free at the start of the second half, we immediately got control of the game and slowly picked off some nice points. The benefit of the breeze certainly helped us improve our clearances and get faster ball to the forwards. Half way through the half we took the lead for the first time and shortly later Noel struck a good goal to take our lead out to 6 points. From there to the finish, each side scored some fine long distance points in a game that had a lot of excitement and some serious scores from both teams. Both teams can be happy with a very decent effort on the night and the game finished on a score of Monagea 2-23 Askeaton 1-19.
We now have a bye in the next round and our final game is against Templeglantine at the end of July.
