After suffering the narrow defeat to Kanturk two weeks ago the Newmarket U16 boys re-grouped to face Knocknagree, in Knocknagree, on a showery wet evening last Thursday (Sept 3rd) in the first round of the back door group in this years championship.

Newmarket got off to a perfect start with a Vince Molloy pointed free in the second minute, conditions meant scores would be well earned and the next score didn’t come until the ninth minute with a Knocknagree score, Knocknagree pressed further and went a point ahead in the eleventh minute. Newmarket replied in perfect style with an excellent solo effort from TJ Brosnan resulting in a goal. Knocknagree then pressed hard and found another 3 points before Newmarket found the net again from a Patrick Kelly goal in the twenty-fifth minute. Knocknagree could have been further ahead at this point but for some excellent defending from the Newmarket back line, in particular Jacko O’Flaherty had a very impressive performance. The score at half time reading 2-1 to 0-5 in favour of Newmarket .

From the start of the second half the Newmarket boys turned on the style with some extremely well worked scores, points coming from Jacko O’Flaherty and Vince Molloy in the 37th and 39th minutes, Knocknagree replied with a point in the 44th Minute but from then on Newmarket pressed ahead scoring another 7 points without reply, scores from Vincent Molloy (3 Points), Gavin Forde TJ Brosnan and Alan Ryan saw a score line of 2-10 to 0-6 in favour of Newmarket as the game came to a close. However to the credit of the Knocknagree spirit they fought hard and put 1 – 2 on the scoreboard in the last 3 minutes leaving a respectable finishing score line of 2-10 to 1-8 at the end. In truth, the scoreboard did not reflect the Newmarket dominance in all areas of the field throughout the game especially in the second half. A tough dogged performance considering how poor conditions where.

The Newmarket team was…

Shane McAuliffe
Billy Lane		Jack Birtley		Timmy O’Flynn
Jacko O’Flaherty (0-1)		Gavin Forde (0-1)		Paudie Allen
	TJ Brosnan (1-1)		David Enright
Nicky Barrett (0-1)		Patrick Kelly (1-0)		Vince Molloy (0-5)
Peter Lynch		Luke McCarthy		Evan O’Keeffe
SUBS: Daniel Culloty, Alan Ryan (0-1), Gerard Murphy.