Tansey Cup March 15th

St. Joseph's 1-8, Strokestown 2-5.

Team & Scorers; Donal Hanly, Paul McLoughlin, Ciaran O'Reilly, Colin Dowd, Daniel Rogers, Philip Duignan (0-1), Niall Brogan, Seamus Collins, Cormac Hanly, Dermot Lohan, Conor Silke (0-4), Andrew Duignan, Damian Shaughnessy (2-0), Gerard Collins, Patrick Gaynor. Subs: Paul 'Gooch' Daly, Brendan 'Pooch' Daly, Thomas Shanagher.

O'Rourke Cup March 9th

Castlerea St. Kevin's 1-08; Strokestown 0-08.

The 747 sponsored senior team began their league campaign in O'Rourke Park Castlerea on Sunday morning March 9th. In a tough game played on very boggy underfoot conditions the home side emerged victorious after the strokestown goalie (Me) gifted Castlerea a goal.

Castlerea opened the scoring in the game from a free before Strokestown replied through a John Rogers point. Castlerea added on two further scores from very soft free's before Strokestown tagged on some very good score's from play to take the lead. The town showed some great creativity to engineer scoring positions for Conor Silke, Rory O'Connor, Kenny Bosquette and John Rogers. Town could have stretched the lead even further during the half but Thomas Shanagher scuffed a shot from the edge of the square after John Rogers had pulled the ball back to him along the ground. At the half-time whistle the 'Town' led by 5 points to 3.

At the start of the second half both teams traded points with Rory O'Connor scoring a great point with the outside of his right boot. Then came the turning point of the game. Strokestown goalie, John McHugh, came to deal with a high ball landing to the left of the goals but failed to do so. In an effort to punch the ball clear the goalie only managed to clear straight to a Castlerea player who had the simple task of sending the ball into an empty net. The keeper acknowledged afterwards that he would have been better advised to catch the ball! After greatfully receiving such a gift Castlerea kicked on and added four more points in the final 15 mins. With 10 mins left in the game things turned a bit ugly. Strokestown's Niall Owens was shown a straight red by referee Seamus Regan for reacting to an elbow from Ger Heneghan. If Niall did deserve to go for his reaction then it is perplexing how Heneghan did'nt follow him after leaving Niall with a bloody mouth after swinging his elbow. Considering the Castlerea player had already been booked for something less serious it is amazing how this incident did'nt seem to warrant another yellow! Strokestown tried valiantly with 14 men to get back into the game but could only manage points from David Parker and Seamus Collins, who was making his first competitive start for the senior team. In the end the 'Town' came up short with that gifted goal being the difference between the teams in the end.

Best for Strokestown on the day were Daniel Rogers, who made some stroming runs from wing-back along the right flank, and Seamus Collins, who caught some great ball in the middle of the field on his league debut.

Team & Scorers: John McHugh, Johnny Dolan, Niall Owens, Damian Caslin, Daniel Rogers, Ciaran O'Reilly, Morgan Beirne, Seamus Collins(0-01), Derek Hagan, Niall Brogan, Rory O'Connor(0-02), John Rogers(0-02), Thomas Shanagher, Kenny Bosquette (0-01), Conor Silke (0-01).
Subs: Ronan Owens for Derek Hagan, John Hagan for Damian Caslin, David Parker (0-01) for Thomas Shanagher.