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Midleton Lose Match Last Saturday, But Kanturk Lose Senior Rugby and Aidan McCarthy Calls It A Day For Midleton Kanturk 36 Midleton 18


have been relegated from senior rugby, despite


KANTURK RFC a


stunning victory over Midleton last Saturday in Knocnacolan in the AIL Div 2C encounter, where the home side raked in five tries, but it wasn’t enough


because Boyne


got a last minute try and conversion to draw with Bruff and then Kanturk’s fate was sealed. A lot of questions have


been asked in recent weeks as to how Kanturk had found themselves in such a precarious position. The answer is very simple real- ly; Kanturk had chances during the season, they left games behind them and when that happens, the inevitable will happen and the North Cork side paid the ultimate


price


last weekend. As the match went, well


it couldn’t have started better for the home side that had a try after just 30 seconds when a won- derful move on the left wing found the hands of Kanturk winger Kealan Buckley who dived in for the try.


Conor Cremin convert-


ed and Kanturk were one quarter to their target of four tries and the valuable bonus point.


The next ten minutes


saw Kanturk really press and use the ball through the hands and work it from wing to wing and eventually something had to give. On the


13th


first half with Paul Daly looking dangerous on the break and Aidan McCar- thy looking more like his old self in the middle of the ruck. The ball went quick-


minute


Kanturk had their second try when a great move out the right wing orchestrat- ed by Steven McAuliffe was passed to the Kanturk full back Ronan O’Brien who got in for the try to give Kanturk the 13-point advantage against a slight- ly stunned Midleton team. Midleton did get points


on the board on the 17th minute when Stuart Lee converted a penalty from just outside the Kanturk 22, but it was only a res- pite


for the East Cork


men as Kanturk respond- ed immediately and as the Midleton defence was still re-grouping, Buckley was there again and the Kanturk winger made no mistake as he crossed the line for Kanturk’s third try, which Cremin con- verted to give Kanturk a lot of breathing space be- fore half time and just one more try to find to secure the most important points of their season. Midleton came


out


of their slumber in the last five minutes of the


ly out to the left wing and outside centre Ross O’Mahony deceived the Kanturk defence and ran in Midleton’s opening try of the afternoon and when the half time whis- tle went Kanturk’s lead had been cut to 11points. The second half was all


about Kanturk with total possession of the


foot-


ball. Midleton did get a try, but Kanturk through Michael Mullaly got the all-important try on the 56th


minute, then add-


ed further tries through Ethan Roycroft and Olan Daly to add a gloss to the scoreline, but at the final whistle the news filtered in from Bruff and Kanturk were going back to Junior rugby. Scorers for Kanturk: K Buckley 2 tries, R O’Brien, M Mullaly, E Roycroft and O Daly a try each, C Cremin C Cremin 3 cons. Midleton: M Cronin 2


tries, R O’Mahony try, S Lee Pen.


KANTURK: B Kelle-


her, D O’Donoghue, M Daly, B Daly, J Bradley, C O’Sullivan, C Boyce, E Roycroft, C Cremin, S McAuliffe, K Buckley, S


Cremin, D Fitzpatrick, M Mullaly, R O’Brien. MIDLETON: R


Fitzgerald, D O’Sullivan, G McArdle, M Coakley, A McCarthy, D Gee, S O’Sullivan, M Cronin, R Hogan, R Smyth, L Farn- ham, A Long, R O’Maho- ny, R Mitchell, S Lee. Sub: O Daly for S


McAuliffe (42) Referee: Karl Collins


(IRFU) Midleton Coach John


O’Neill’s reaction: MIDLETON may have their AIL Div 2C


lost


match last Saturday in Kanturk, but their Coach John O’Neill was far more upset about his Cork rivals relegation from ‘Senior Rugby’ back to the junior ranks, he said “It was a sad day for Kanturk rugby and for North Cork rugby last Saturday, it was very tough. I coached there when Kanturk went from Munster junior rugby di- vision two, up to Munster junior rugby division one and I have a lot of warm feelings for Kanturk rug- by club, they are a great bunch of lads, a lovely club and a fantastic Parish and my heart went out to them last Saturday”. There was an eerie si-


lence as the players left the field in Knockcolan last Saturday afternoon when the news filtered through that Boyne had secured a draw against


Intermediate Football Championship


Glenville 2-12 Kinsale 2-8


served four-point win over Kinsale


the


Glenville recorded a de- in


opening


round of the Intermedi- ate football championship, played at the Ballygarvan venue last Saturday night.


This was a fully deserved victory for Glenville who played some terrific foot- ball and got some great scores. Glenville raced into an early lead as they domi-


nated possession and when Dylan McCarthy found the net for the opening goal in the 18th


While minute, they were


1-5 to 0-1 in front. Kin- sale found the going tough against a hard-tackling Glenville defence, but they did get a lifeline just before the interval with Gearoid Finn getting a goal to leave them trailing by 1-7 to 1-2 at the interval.


Kinsale started


the second half in bet- ter form with free-taker Jack Gould on song, they were again rocked back as McCarthy struck for his second goal to leave Glen- ville in front by 2-7 to 1-4 as Kinsale now faced an uphill battle. From there to the finish Glenville re- mained in control with William Connolly and


Bruff, which was enough to put them into the play- offs and Kanturk into relegation, O’Neill added “Sport can be tough and now looking back at it last weekend, we weren’t too far ahead of them either and that is something we need to move away from next season. We finished third from the bottom and it was a very tough year for us at Town’s Park in Midleton and we have to get players in for next season and in fact we have been working to address that


problem since last


February and we have to get a huge recruitment drive going to extend out squad. We will look at the ‘Seconds’ the underage players and work hard to make sure we don’t find ourselves in a similar po- sition next


season. This


year was very tough and hopefully next year will be better, but just a couple of days after the match, I must say we all need a break. We have key play- ers retiring and I think about the loss of Mahaffi (Aidan McCarthy) is huge, but he has been an exceptional servant to the club and we would have loved to have sent him off on a winning note, but that wasn’t to be”. “Last weekend we used


some of our younger play- ers to begin with, but we had all our players on the


Paudie Cahill adding on points. Kinsale did get a second goal from the pen- alty spot with six minutes remaining,


but it came


too late to spark a revival as by then Glenville were sufficiently in front to see out the win and book their place in the second round. Glenville: D McCarthy


2-0, D Dennehy 0-4, W Connolly, B Halbert band P Cahill 0-2 each, PJ Den- nehy and E O’Reilly 0-1 each.


• The Great Aidan Muhaffi McCarthy in his last game in AIL Rugby


Kinsale: J Gould 1-5, G Finn 1-0, B McGrory, C O’Brien and D Ward 0-1 each. Glenville: J Foley, D


O’Farrell, A Ricken, M Kennedy, S Field, P O’Regan, A Spriggs, W Connolly, D Hegarty, E O’Reilly, G Cahill, D Mc- Carthy, D Dennehy, PJ Dennehy and B Halbert. Subs used C Crowley for Kennedy, S Halbert


for


O’Reilly, P Cahill for G Cahill and J Cooke for D


Dennehy. Kinsale: S O’Neill, W


O’Hea, C Lane, C Mitch- ell, S O’Brien, G McCar- thy, G O’Leary, D O’Cal- laghan, N McCarthy, G Finn, J Gould, D ward, C O’Brien, M Cronin and B McGrory. Subs used J Cronin for McGrory B/C, C Donnellan for Cronin, R Hanlon for C O’Brien and S O’Connell for O’Leary. Referee: Andrew Belton (Clonakilty)


field, like Kevin Brier- ly, Diarmuid O’Sullivan and a few more and we came to win, but to be fair Kanturk were really good and they were fighting for their lives and impressed me, really I don’t think they were a relegation side, but as always in sport there is a very fine line be- tween success and failure and this is a tough division with clubs beating each other week in, week out and it is a shame to lose a Cork team from the All Ireland League” conclud- ed O’Neill. Midleton star Aidan McCarthy (Mahafee) as he is affectionately known,


lined out for the final time at


senior level for the


club after giving years of service and O’Neill was fulsome in his praise for one of the great warri- ors in the side. Like Paul O’Connell he had a huge presence both on and off the pitch and while he will be sorely missed, now is probably the right


time


for Aidan to call it a day as it will give the club a little time to source a re- placement, which will not be an easy job as Aidan had been an inspirational figure for the club over the past 20 years.


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