Newmarket’s intermediate footballers were defeated in their latest league outing, a home contest ending in victory for Eire Og by 1-12 to 1-9, in a game played in splendid sunshine.

The visitors were quick off the mark pointing in style within thirty seconds and they followed up with a second score in the third minute. Newmarket settled into a rhythm and got on the scoreboard thanks to a wonderfully taken free from distance by Nicky Flanagan in the fifth minute and were on level terms within a minute when some excellent quick approach play ended with Denys O’Brien clipping over an equalizing point. Newmarket were very impressive at this stage of the game and took the lead with Nicky Flanagan again on target.

Some outstanding defending from T.J. Bodie who on three successive occasions in the same move thwarted his opponent launched a Newmarket attack and Nicky Flanagan was at the end of a fine move to kick an excellent score. Bart Daly was next on target as he converted a long distance free with some power and style. A rampant Newmarket had a sixth point in succession by the end of the opening quarter when John Ryan pointed a free.

Eire Og responded with a point but Newmarket took a sizeable six point advantage in the twenty second minute thanks to an excellently engineered goal. T.J. Bodie who was prominent at centre back, threaded a superb pass to Denys O’Brien whose awareness led him to place John Lane in on goal and he finished in style to the corner of the net. Amazingly, for some inexplicable reason this proved to be Newmarket’s final score for fully twenty six minutes having been outstanding up to this point of the game. The half ended with Eire Og reducing the arrears by a point which left the interval score at 1-6 to 0-4 in Newmarket’s favour.

The second half was dominated by Eire Og for near on twenty minutes. They slowly grew in confidence and cut at the deficit. Points in the second, seventh and tenth minutes left two points separating the sides. A minute later the visitors regained the lead on finding the Newmarket net and once in front they did not relent. Four further points by the end of the third quarter gave Eire Og a five point advantage thanks to a haul of a goal and seven points in sixteen minutes.

Newmarket eventually ended their barren scoring spell with Nicky Flanagan clinical once more from a free with twelve minutes remaining. Denys O’Brien tried to spur on his team mates and his second point of the game brought Newmarket back to within three points. As they tried to salvage a result, Eire Og pointed on the counter attack but once again Denys O’Brien pointed in response for Newmarket. The home side did come close on one occasion to finding a last gasp goal but in the end they suffered for their major collapse during the third quarter and Eire Og deservedly ended claiming the points.

The Newmarket team and scorers…

Nicky Flanagan (0-4), Denys O’Brien (0-3), John Lane (1-0), Bart Daly (0-1), John Ryan (0-1)

Niall O’Connor
Michael O’Leary		Gerard Casey		David O’Flynn
Bart Daly		T.J. Bodie		Conor Cronin
	Barry O'Leary		Mark Murphy
Kevin O'Sullivan		Tony O'Keeffe		John Ryan
John Lane		Denys O'Brien		Nicky Flanagan
Subs: T.J. Brosnan, Gavin Forde, Brian O’Riordan, Shane Murphy, Pa O’Brien