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sport@eastcorkjournal.ie


Thursday, 3rd


May 2018 Cork’s Lehane Can’t Wait For New Championship Format


by JOHN FALLON The


championship


change to the format


will place new demands on players this summer but as Cork forward Conor Lehane out,


points they had to beat


three of the other four teams in Munster to win the provincial


title last


season. Those wins over Tip-


perary, Waterford and Clare in the final secured a second Munster cham- pionship medal for the Midleton sharpshooter and he can’t wait for the summer of action to kick off in a few weeks. But it’s a measure of


how much Cork have turned to youth in recent seasons that


Lehane,


heading into his eighth championship campaign even though he is only 25, can only point to a couple of players who are


there


a few more this year. It keeps everyone on their toes. “The change in the


structure this year means that


the depth in the


squad will be more im- portant than ever when you have matches nearly every week.” Lehane, speaking


at


Bandon GAA Grounds in Cork to launch the GAA Super Games Centre in partnership with Sky Sports, said players are supportive of the new championship structure. “Definitely, every-


one wants to play more games and there will be less training. Training is great but after a while you can only train so much.


“When you look back


him in the Rebels’ squad. “You have


longer than to have


young fellas coming through each season and hopefully we will have


on the amount of match- es you actually play compared to when a bit younger, when there was hardly any training, back then it was just match, match, match.” Lehane said that their


All-Ireland semi-final loss to Waterford has


East Cork Russell Rovers GAA


Russell Rovers. 0_15. Sarsfield. 1_16 Russell Rovers opened


up their league cam- paign against Sars to- night with a 4 point de- feat in a game that they were in and out of for long periods especially in the second half.The Rovers started well and played some nice hurl- ing to lead by 3 pts after ten minutes only to hit a blow with the retirement of full foward Josh Beau- sang thru an ankle inju- ry.With Eoin McGrath coming on as a replace- ment


to settle


Rovers started with Daniel


O’Brien wing back pro- cessing a huge amount of ball.Fintan Murray who joined us this year was playing some love- ly hurling and fully de- served the 3 points from


play he got in the first half.With Rovers lead- ing 9 pts to 6 pts at half time we were


feeling


fairly confident as the second half started with a pointed free from Bud after he was fouled again on one of his many runs. Sars responded with a point of their own before Luke Murray scored one of his signature points. Following a lapse of con- centration from our own puck out Sars were guick to respond to a short ball and hit the back of the net.This score saw Sars up the pace of the game and score


two more


points to leave them 4 ahead after ten minutes. With Chris Ruddy play- ing a fine game at full back and John Paul Ivers excelling at wing back we came back to two with further scores from Bud only for Sars to respond with scores of their own. At this stage it would


fair to say that a few performances were not up to scratch but I will leave that correction to the management team. However with only min- utes remaining Fintan scored a point to leave only three between the sides and here we saw Bud take off on one of his determined runs for goal only to be denied by a fabulous save from the Sars goal keeper.Rovers did finish with a superb point from JP and now look foward to their sec- ond game against Bride Rovers next night 24th


Tuesday April at 7.15


pm. In Shanagarry. KHL. Team.Ross


Walsh.


Aidan Beausang.Chris Ruddy.James Ahern. Daniel O’Brien.James Kenefick.John Paul Iv- ers.Kieran Walsh.Daniel Moynihan.John Ahern. Brian Hartnett.Luke Duggan Murray.Fintan


Russell Rovers 3-16 Cobh 3-6 Russell Rovers came


away Carrigtwohill on Sunday night with a well deserved win in what was a tough physical encoun- ter against a big Cobh side who never gave up to the final whistle.With the weather still having a hold on the quality


Tel: 021 463 8000 • Email: sport@eastcorkjournal.ie • Web: www.eastcorkjournal.ie not dominated their


thoughts during the win- ter, but they are keen to build


on the progress


they made last summer. “The Waterford game


hasn’t been mentioned that much, not really. It was very disappoint- ing really. We had three good games under our belt. “That’s how cruel


sport it and how frustrat- ing it can be. Obviously, the few weeks after were very tough, on the sport- ing side of it. During the winter you bring up what we needed to do so it wouldn’t happen again, and then work on that. “In terms of the game


itself you wouldn’t look at


it too much. It is in


the past, so you just take what you can from it to make sure it doesn’t hap- pen again,” added Le- hane, who works for AIB at Little Island in Cork. His first Munster


championship medal in 2013 saw them progress to the All-Ireland final, only to go down to Clare in a replay and having


not tasted underage suc- cess with Cork he would love to go all the way at senior level. And Lehane believes


that this is the most open championship he


has


faced into, with several counties, including Cork, with genuine aspirations of lifting the Liam Mac- Carthy Cup in August. “From a crowd point


of view, it’s brilliant be- cause


you genuinely


don’t know what’s go- ing to happen. Anybody could do it. Everyone is capable of beating some- one else on the day but it’s purely on the day. “You look at Kilken- ny. People were


talk-


ing about their decline but you see them in the league final again, there is no stopping them. They are always there. “Look


at Leinster


alone, Galway, Dublin, Wexford, Kilkenny all in contention. In Munster, two from Tipperary, Wa- terford, Limerick, Clare and us will not progress. It’s crazy, you really have to take it bit by bit, but


that’s what’s going to make it a brilliant year. I can’t wait for it to start.” Cork will begin the


defence of their Munster title at home to Clare on May 20, then face Tip- perary in Semple Stadi- um the following week before hosting Limerick six days later. They will then have a free weekend for taking on Waterford in Semple Stadium. Lehane said that


the


transition from selec- tor John Meyler taking over


Kieran


as manager Kingston


from last


autumn was smooth and that while they weren’t happy with their league showing, they learned a lot from that campaign, even if they needed a win over Waterford in a relegation play-off to ensure their top flight status. “We were all familiar


with John. It was obvi- ously going to be some bit


different because a


couple of the lads left last year. But we are very familiar


with them so in terms of transition it Notes Murray.Josh Beausang.


Ian Smiddy.Kevin Ivers. Alan Cott.Dan Ruddy.


Russell Rovers 4-24 Bride Rovers 1-11 Well


done


of the playing surfac- es around the country Carrigtwohill have


to to Rus-


sell Rovers tonight who scored a comprehensive win over Bride Rovers in their 2nd


league game


of the season.Some ex- cellent play from all in- volved as we used our full bench.Final score line 4_24. To. 1_11. Next up is Cobh next April at


Sunday 29th


6.45pm in Shanagarry. KHL.Apologies


for no


match report wasn’t at the game long enough.


be complimented on the good playing surface. Both teams started like the old Roman armies of long ago with no one showing any sign of weakness in the opening 7 mins and this was as long as it took for Cobh to get the opening point only to be answered by Eoghan O’Sullivan who made his first start to- night for the Rovers this season.Brian


Hartnett


who is after taking the free


duties responded


with a point of his own after Luke Murray was brought down.The next fifteen minutes was to be the Bud show with some


excellent


from play from the hurl of Danny Moynihan af- ter a ball out of defence from Kevin Ivers gave him the time needed to excute such a score.With Rovers winning 0_9. To. 0_4 at the short whistle we all felt that the second was to be a very compet- itive one for the first ten minutes.We weren’t


to


be left disappointed with the battles for possession very tough but fair.Here we saw some great play from the backs who were led by the


improving points


from play and frees.For frees to occur players have to be fouled out the field and here we had a great workload from Kieran Walsh. Luke.Fin- tan Murray and broth- ers Danny and Kevin Moynihan.The half end- ed with a superb point


Chris Ruddy.Luke was to get the scoring underway after seven minutes with a well struck point only for Cobh to get the next two scores.With still only four points in the game Jack McGrath came on for Eoghan O’Sullivan and made a huge im- pression on the game with his ability to win the ball in the tough physical challenges and lay off ball to Fintan Murray goal and Kevin Moyni- han point.The Rovers were now playing with


eastcorkjournal


with confidence and hurling with the flair that we know they have.With the game under total we were to leak 3 goals in a 3 minute period one of which was a fine one handed stike


from the


Cobh full foward.How- ever Rovers kicked on again and finished very strongly with a goal from Kieran Walsh.This was a very good work out for all the players and mentors alike with a lot of learning to be taken from it.Well done to all involved as we head onto the next round against Killeagh.Up next Tuesday 1st the


May we have match against


JFL Div-3 Castle-


martyr in Castlemartyr at 7.30 pm. Wednesday 2nd


May we have the fi-


nal of the U/21 Football Championship against Midleton in Ballinacurra at 7pm.This is one that St Colmans can win and need all the support that we can give.


wasn’t have been any- thing major. “We had a good start


and a good finish to the league


but throughout


it we kind of fell down. I know there were fellas missing, new fellas on trying to gel together a bit. I wouldn’t look into it heavily. “But when it comes to


certain games where we fell down, the Wexford game especially, in the last few minutes we just took the pedal off the gas a bit. In general, we lost fairly close games. They weren’t hammering by any means. “The league is about


getting yourself as ready as you can. It’s the closest thing you will get to the championship. I am glad we won the relegation play-off but you always want to play in the quar- ter-final and semi-final because they are closer and closer to champion- ships games. You want to play as many of them as you can. That’s just the way it went.


“Championship is al- ways a different kettle


of fish. You never real- ly know what is going to happen. The teams are so close, it’s scary to think about it, but sure that’s what has us all looking forward to it as well. Hopefully, it will be a great summer,” added Lehane.


Conor Lehane speaking at was Bandon


GAA Grounds in Cork to launch the GAA Super Games Centre in part- nership with Sky Sports. The Super Games Cen- tres, which are based all over the country, were set up to reduce youth drop out and encourage “play to stay” amongst youth, specifically between the ages of 12 and 17 where youth drop out is most prevalent. Sky Sports is supporting the GAA Super Games Centres by arranging visits with Sky Sports mentors and providing kits and equip- ment


to the estimated


9,000 members country- wide.


@eastcorkjournal / #eastcorkjournal


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