Men's Senior Round 2

12 May 2014 by Gerry McCullagh

On an emotionally charged weekend for the club, following the return of popular Shamrocks man Mark ‘Gaff’ Griffin to the Motherland. A bumper crowd turned out at the Tom Bateman Reserve to watch this second round mens senior league clash on Sunday afternoon, between Western Shamrocks and Greenwood.

Following a promising second half display the previous week, the men in green & white shot out of the blocks in this one. Points from Johnny Jordan, Gavin Donaghy and debutant Brendan Maguire (2) gave them the early advantage.
After eighteen minutes played, the scoreboard read 1-06 to 0-04 in favor of Shamrocks, following a stunning goal from wing back Darren ‘Chips‘ Drummond.
Started by full back Jason Brosnan, his excellent cross-field ball found Danny O‘ Keefe, who after breezing by a couple of players, laid off to Drummond who fired an unstoppable shot to the roof of the net. 2-03 for the Aodh Ruadh star in two games underlined his tag as the most potent half back in the State.
Outstanding play from Shamrocks Summer signing O’ Keefe at centre forward and tigerish defending from the excellent Jason Gavy in defence ensured the Shams went in at the break with a decent, but not too comfortable five point gap.

HT ​Shamrocks 1-09
​Greenwood 0-07​

On the resumption, points from O‘ Keefe, the returning Gavin Donaghy and Alan Douglas kept the scoreboard ticking for Shamrocks. However Greenwood had other ideas. A somewhat dubious foot block decision went in favour of the ‘wood and the resulting penalty was duly dispatched to the net to hawl the defecit back to five points. Now the game came to life.
A brilliant individual run from that man O‘ Keefe set up Brendan Maguire for Shamrocks second goal of the afternoon. Collecting the ball on his own ’45, the Athy man managed to run the length of the field to set up Maguire inside the small square and the impressive Donegal corner forward found the net with a fisted effort on the second attempt.
From the resulting kickout, Greenwood replied with a goal of their own to immediately nullify the previous Maguire effort. This left the score board reading 2-13 3-08 in favour of Shamrocks, approaching the final minutes of the game.
The two teams went score for score for the duration of the match as fingernails among the watching Shams faithful became few and far between. Two scores from Seamus ‘Shakes’ Kane and accurate free taking from county colleague Maguire kept the boys in it, but nothing was to stop Greenwood taking the lead for the first time in injury time.
The signs looked ominous for Ray Reilly’s men as the time ticked away. Philly Doyle, Alan Douglas and Maguire desperately tried to find the equaliser until up stepped Meath man Johnny Jordan. Cool customer Jordan showed great skill to swing a lovely effort over whilst off balance and cap off an excellent personal performance for the Skryne man and give Shamrocks a deserved share of the spoils.

FT​ Shamrocks 2-17
​Greenwood 3-14