Munster Senior Girls Football
“Hazelwood College top group to move into the quarter finals”
Hazelwood College Dromcollogher: 3-7
Colaiste Treasa Kanturk: 2-6
This game was highly charged from the beginning with the winners going through to the knock out stages and which left Hazelwood with a mountain to climb at half time-but the Dromcollogher girls don’t mind heights and came through in flying colours at the end of this engrossing contest.
Three minutes into the game Kanturk hit the back of the net and added on three well taken points before the first quarter. Suddenly Hazelwood found themselves six points behind and were struggling to put any score on the board. A great run by the inspirational Maire Flannagan found Emma Browne thirty metres from goal who turned and headed straight to within 10 metres of the goalline before shooting past the hapless Kanturk goalie to register our first score. Emma followed up with a well taken point.
At this point Hazelwood lost captain Ciara Meaney to an ankle injury (but returned again ten minutes into the second half) and they seemed to lose the plot again missing some easy chances but worse still leaving Kanturk in for another goal and two points before the referee blew for half time- a half where Hazelwood operated in first gear.
On the resumption where Aisling O’Brien was now operating at full forward things began to happen for Drom. Aisling laid off a beautiful ball to Vickie Harnett, who popped it over the bar within the first minute. Within five minutes Aisling had the ball in the net and Denise O’Connell slotted over two points from frees without any reply from Kanturk. Ciara came back on at this stage and after some strong running from mid-field got through to score a point. After some great work from Tara Hurley at half back the ball spun across the goal mouth and like a flash Helen Bradley had the ball planted to put Hazelwood ahead for the first time in the match. Kanturk came back scoring a point but two more point from Nicola O’Connell and Helen Bradley clocked the game out leaving the final score 3-7 to 2-6. Best for Hazelwood were M. Flannagan, C. Meaney, H Bradley, T. Hurley, N Kiely, E. Browne and A. O’Brien.
Hazelwood Starting team: A O Brien, S Forde, M Geary, N Greaney, T Hurley, M Flannagan, L Hanley, C. Meany(captain) N. Kiely, D. O’Connell, E Browne, V Harnett, H Bradley, E Noonan. A Moloney.
Subs used: A O’Connor, N. O’Brien, C. O’Leary.