Sarsfields 2-14 Pearses 0-12: The teams were level after five minutes in this Senior Hurling Quarter-Final played in Kenny Park, Athenry, last Sunday. However, a scoring burst from Sarsfields seen them add 2-5 to their tally by the 20th minute. This was the deciding period of the game. From there until the end Sarsfields did enough to keep an out of sorts Pearses at arms length.
Pearses took an early two point lead, but 0-4 in-a-row from the New Inn/Bullaun men put them two up after 10 minutes. Kerrill Wade with 0-2, one an excellent long range score from in front of the dugouts. Soon after Galway Minor Ian Fox was on hand to finish Sarsfields’ first goal and open a five point lead, 1-4 to 0-2.
The next 0-6 were shared equally, as Gareth Lally dropped back to help the Pearses defence stem the tide. However, Alan Ward struck for another Sarsfields goal at the second attempt, following the initial save by Paul O’Brien. Tom Flannery added a Pearses point from play just before half-time, as Sarsfields took a seven point lead into the break, 2-7 to 0-6.
Cyril Donnellan was switched to centre-forward for the second half and Pearses had two of the first three second half points, both from Flannery frees. Then a succession of five wides, shared between the sides. Sean Hardiman went close to finding the net with one. Half-time substitute Ronan O’Neill landed a long range point, his first in Senior Championship. The margin was down to five, 2-8 to 0-9.
Unfortunately, this was a close as Pearses would get, as Sarsfields closed out the game with six of the remaining nine points. The second half was littered with stoppages and prevented any sort of momentum. Tommy McDonagh was red carded towards the end of the game, but the result had been decided before then.
Pearses: P O’Brien; T McDonagh, T Kenny, R Lally; A Bellew, C Donnellan (0-2), K Hardiman; D Wynne, C Raftery (0-1); S Hardiman, J Gelston (0-1), E Ward; R Bellew (0-1), T Flannery (0-6, 5f), G Lally. Subs: R O’Neill (0-1), S Raftery, A Kilkenny.