Defending champions Newmarket qualified for a third successive Duhallow under 21 football final when they defeated Dromtariffe on Sunday evening at the latter’s venue by 1-11 to 1-7.

Playing against a cool breeze, Newmarket flew out of the traps. Bart Daly surged forward to kick a fine opening point in the fourth minute. The very lively John Lane then punched a point and John Ryan converted a free after seven minutes. Dromtariffe then settled into the game and were rewarded with two points by the end of the opening quarter. Newmarket managed to hold on to their slender lead and Ian Flanagan was on hand to score a badly needed point for Newmarket after twenty minutes. This propelled Newmarket back into form and they finished the half strongly and increased their lead by three further points, with John Ryan adding two further pointed frees, either side of another John Lane point. This gave Newmarket a lead of 0-7 to 0-2 at the turnover.

Dromtariffe resumed with a point within a minute of the restart but Kevin O’Sullivan pointed for Newmarket three minutes later. Dromtariffe pointed next, but yet again Newmarket responded with a point, this time through Ian Flanagan. The decisive score of the game came ten minutes into the half. Kevin O’Sullivan slipped a pass to Bart Daly who played a wonderful cross field pass into the hands of Nicky Flanagan twenty yards from goal, Nicky still had plenty to do but he sidestepped the Dromtariffe defence and finished brilliantly to the corner of the net with an unstoppable shot. An injured John Lane’s last piece of action was to kick a point from a free and Newmarket led by 1-10 to 0-4 at the three quarter stage. Newmarket’s performance was very patchy for the remainder of the game.

A dogged Dromtariffe side kept going and added the next two points before Kevin O’Sullivan scored what proved to be Newmarket’s final score of the game with ten minutes still to play. Dromtariffe further reduced the deficit with a point and they struck for a goal in the final stages of the game. This proved to be the final score of the game and Newmarket claimed a four point victory. They now progress to meet Kanturk in the final.

The Newmarket team was…

Niall O’Connor
John Scanlon		Brian O’Riordan		David Guiney
Conor Cronin		Bart Daly (0-1)		Robert Stack
	Kevin O’Sullivan (0-2)		Timothy Murphy
John Ryan (0-3)		T.J. Bodie		Michael Kenneally
Ian Flanagan (0-2)		John Lane (0-3)		Nicky Flanagan (1-0)
SUBS: Brendan Stack, Jerry McCarthy