Josh Clarke scored a fine long distance goal to nose Passage in front but it required strong defending from Jack Lester and Dylan Walls to keep Tracton from scoring again.  Cathal Moloney in goal cleared up any ball coming through and sent some fine long puckouts down to the half forward line of Cathal Taaffe and Jack Stapleton. Cathal T and Jack S caused major problems for the Tracton backs who struggled to hold them at bay.  Sean O Mahony and Conor Lester battled hard for the ball in the full forward line and had some near misses when the ball just wouldn’t fall for them to score, but they really made it hard for the Tracton backs to clear decent ball by defending from the front. The scores were hard to come by in the first half and it was 1-0 to 0-1 to Passage at the break even though a Jack Stapleton rocket came back off the post just before the break.

Conditions were wet all through but the mist descended in the second half.  The action was fast and the quality of hurling from both sides was very high given the conditions. Passage really started to hurl very well and they scored 3 goals in quick succession. Josh Clarke scored his second and third goals with a couple of bullets from the ground and Jack Stapleton scored a beauty sandwiched in between after great build up work down the left. It was started by Dylan Walls who halted a Tracton attack and passed to Cathal T who let fly early into Conor Lester.  Conor broke the ball back to Jack S who struck a lovely shot to the net through a crowded defence. Passage were really flying at this stage and Mark Coughlan and Michael Sheehan put in huge work in the middle whenever Tracton had the ball.  Luke and Jamie played very well together and they dictated the play from the Passage half back line, with one going forward whilst the other stayed back.  Jamie in particular cleared up and started lots of attacks with his long clearances. Tracton were never out of it and got back into it late on with a fortunate goal and a point before Luke weighed in with a fine goal from distance.

Cathal Moloney coped fantastically with the poor conditions for goalkeeping with some lovely takes out of the mist.  He also set up numerous attacks with his huge and accurate puckouts. Jack Lester made some great tackles and burst out with the ball several times to clear the danger and Dylan Walls let nothing past him all day as usual.  Jack S was really motoring on the right and put over 2 lovely points from tight angles and had some nice interplay with Conor up ahead of him in the full forward line. Cathal T was battling all through in attack and stopping Tracton setting up any attacks from their half backs.  Michael Sheehan and Mark Coughlan put in some excellent tackles and won some tough ball on the ground in the middle which enabled Josh to get forward for his goals.

Conor Lester never stopped running and caused the Tracton defence problems all day – and shouldered his man out of the way a couple of times even though he was nearly twice his size!  Sean played the role of target man really well, competing for high balls sent in by Jamie and Luke.  Sean’s play allowed Josh and Jack S to drive forward and score the vital goals.  Tracton scored their second goal in the last minute and that was the first time their full forward line got anything past Dylan and Jack L and even that was unlucky for Cathal M as the Tracton man buried the rebound after a great initial point blank save.  There were many contenders for man of the match as there were great performances all over the pitch, and nobody worked harder than Michael, Jamie, Mark and Jack L but its hard to ignore a man who scores a hat trick!

This was a great way to finish the season as the lads played really well individually and as a team and they should be proud of the progress made by all this year in both football and hurling and its starting to look like Damien, Ian, Robbie and Brian  know what they’re at afterall!  We’re taking a break now for August but we’ll start again in the first week of September and we’ll send out a text closer to the time.

Passage Team v Tracton
Cathal Moloney, Jack Lester, Dylan Walls, Jamie O Sullivan, Luke Tett, Michael Sheehan, Mark Coughlan, Josh Clarke, Cathal Taaffe, Jack Stapleton, Sean O Mahony, Conor Lester