Newmarket bowed out of the Duhallow Cup at the semi final stage, when they suffered defeat against Boherbue by 2-10 to 1-9 in a keenly contested game played at Kiskeam on Tuesday night.

Newmarket opened the scoring when John Ryan converted a free on being upended in the opening seconds of the game. It was Boherbue however who completely dominated proceedings in the opening half. They responded in whirlwind fashion and their combination of determined and driven football was rewarded with an excellent return of six points by the end of the first quarter. Newmarket struggled with this onslaught and despite faring better in the second quarter Boherbue further increased their lead on adding a seventh point. As the half came to a conclusion, John Lane eventually pointed for a shaken Newmarket as another Boherbue score left them in firm control by 0-8 to 0-2 at the halfway mark.

To their credit Newmarket responded to a dismal opening half in the most impressive of fashion. John Ryan converted a free before Gerard Casey kicked a point in the fourth minute. The impressive Tony O’Keeffe and John Ryan reduced the arrears to just two points in a seven minute spell before Newmarket were awarded a penalty on Maurice Feehan being fouled as he closed in on goal. Brian O’Riordan duly stepped up to slot the ball home and amazingly Newmarket took the lead, 1-6 to 0-8 after just nine second half minutes. Boherbue tied matters with their first point of the half in the twelveth minute but it was Newmarket who had the momentum and Bart Daly strode forward to kick two fine points from play. When John Lane added a free with twelve minutes to play, Newmarket enjoyed a clear lead of 1-9 to 0-9 at this stage. Crucially, the next score of the game proved to be an equalizing goal for Boherbue and an exciting final ten minutes followed as both sides endeavoured to claim victory. With matters still level with little over two minutes to play it was Boherbue who breached the Newmarket defence for a second time to crash home a second goal. As Newmarket sought a response Boherbue sealed victory on adding an insurance point and duly ran out worthy winners.

The Newmarket team was…

David Quinlan
Pa O’Brien		Barry O’Leary		Brian O’Riordan (1-0)
Niall O’Connor		Bart Daly (0-2)		Michael Kenneally
	Colin O’Sullivan		Timothy Murphy
T.J. Bodie		David O’Flynn		Maurice Feehan
John Ryan (0-3)		John Lane (0-2)		Tony O’Keeffe (0-1)
SUBS: Kevin O’Sullivan, Conor Cronin, Gerard Casey (0-1)