It’s said goals win matches and on Sunday it was a goal that separated the teams to give the deserved win to Cloonacool in their Junior A clash with Tourlestrane in Curry on a scoreline of 1-10 to 10 points.
Rian Bailey got on the scoresheet early with the first point followed by the first of Aidan Marren's 7 points of the afternoon for Tourlestrane but 3 quick unanswered points from Cloonacool's James Lawrence Jason Brennan and Ronan Leonard, proving that in this encounter of neighbours was not going to either parish without a battle!
The sharp shooting Marren was on target with another brace of points but once again by the end of the first quarter the busy Brennan and Leonard kept clocking up scores and the tight game continued.
Niall Egan scored his first of two followed by midfielder Eoin Carty on the scoresheet left the teams at 7 points to 6 mid way when John Gilmartin blew the half time whistle .
The lower scoring second half started with Hughie Marren kicking a point and the turning point of the game came when the outstanding Eoin Carty saw his opportunity and finished his goal into the net with aplomb which was to earn him a definite player of the game title.
This followed by keeper Niall Brennan coming forward to convert a free for David Curran’s men leaving the scores at the 45 minute mark at 1/9 to 6 points . Tourlestrane may have thought they could capitalize on Cloonacool going down to 14 men with a black card issued to Sean Carnahan seeing them very quiet for the following 10 minutes and the nifty Marren scoring 3 more points in that period closing the gap, but that much needed goal proved impossible to claim back and with a final two points from the boot of Egan and Lawrence the honours went Cloonacool’s way at the final whistle .