Newmarket suffered a disappointing defeat against St. Vincent’s by 0-8 to 0-5 in the opening round of the Premier Intermediate football championship game played at Mallow on Monday evening.

The city outfit got out the blocks instantly and aided by a significant breeze pointed from distance within seconds of the throw in. Both sides tried to settle in the early stages but a scrappy encounter developed for the duration of the game. Newmarket enjoyed a few forays towards their opponent’s goal before David O’Flynn kicked an equalizer in the tenth minute. The physically superior St. Vincent’s side took a grip and made their superiority pay by adding three unanswered points in eight minutes. Newmarket improved and John Ryan converted a free in the twenty third minute, however despite enjoying possession deep in the opposition territory they failed to add to their scoring tally. St. Vincents added a fifth point to turn over in front by 0-5 to 0-2 at the interval but Newmarket were well in contention considering the advantageous breeze.

Similar to the opening half, it was St. Vincent’s who began with an early score. Newmarket struggled to impose themselves and indeed it was the city team that took a firm stranglehold on matters as two further scores gave them a six point advantage, twelve minutes into the half. Amazingly this proved to be their final score of the game as they seemed to settle for defending their lead and see out the remainder of the contest. Newmarket did respond and were rewarded by a quick flurry of points with three scores in as many minutes, two John Ryan frees sandwiched between a point from Denys O’Brien. Newmarket endeavoured hard to the finish but failed to add to their tally in a scoreless final twelve minutes. St. Vincent’s defended everything Newmarket could muster, despite the driving influences of Mark Reidy and Barry O’Leary amongst others. The game petered out to a tame conclusion and Newmarket must now regroup for a knockout second round tie against Nemo Rangers.
The Newmarket team was…

Niall O’Connor
Pa O’Brien		Barry O’Leary		Brian O’Riordan
Mark Reidy		Denys O’Brien (0-1)		Bart Daly
	Kevin O’Sullivan		Gerard Casey
David O’Flynn (0-1)		T.J. Bodie		Maurice Feehan
John Ryan (0-3)		Tony O’Keeffe		John Lane
SUBS: Conor Cronin and Nicky Flanagan.