Monday, May 28, 2012

(See the week's blog programme in second posting from last night) t.c.
Intermediate Championship First Round
Two Halves -the Bright and the Dark- in Boyle's performance
Boyle 1.11 St. Barry's 1.8.

 Mon. 1am. Boyle won the first game of the Intermediate Championship at the Abbey Park on Saturday evening. This was certainly a game of two halves and illustrated the good and the bad of Boyle's performance.
The first half saw something of an exhibition of good direct football with some fine scores. While it took Boyle 9 minutes to get on the scoreboard they pressed on with all areas performing well. Midfield did very well with Ciaran Cox having one of his best games. The positioning of Sean Purcell at midfield was a matter of comment but having a player of his all round ability at the centre of play is very important and it worked very well in this half where, with Cox breaking the ball effectively, the picking up of the broken ball was a vital issue and Boyle did fine here. The ball was being advanced quickly and in a varied way which paid dividends. The full forward line was very effective in this half with fine fielding by Donie Smith and he being fouled a number of times for frees. Lochlainn Conboy had his best half for a long time and Darren O'Connor (my Man of the Match) had a fine game all through. Jim Suffin after a spectacular catch showed his potential with a searing run right down the middle to crash the ball to the net from around 25 yards, on 30 minutes, for one of the finest goals seen in the Abbey Park for a long time. Another little detail was a nice/clever quick free leading to a point by L.C. on 23 minutes. I wonder why this kind of intelligent quick free (which can often unhinge opposition slow to reorganise)is not used more in the middle third of the field. Barry's 2nd point was the result of some querying of the referee's decision which resulted in the ball being brought forward to a scoring position. Still with Boyle leading at half-time on the score of 1.8 to St. Barry's 0.3 the 8 point lead looked a comfortable one considering also that the team was playing so well all through the field.
However the second half exhibited many of the old flaws and in summary was a mess. When Boyle opened the scoring through a Darren O'Connor point after 2 minutes Boyle's lead stood at 9 points and extended to 10 with a Donie Smith point on 10 minutes. Barry's reduced this to 6 with a messy goal and a point. Boyle 1.10 Barry's 1.4.However a great run and point from Seanie Purcell on 14 minutes was reassuring, Boyle 1.11 Barry's 1.4. However, incredibly, this was the last Boyle score and Barry's added 4 more points and if their free taking was reasonable they could certainly have got a most unlikely win or certainly a draw. This resulted in Boyle going from a very comfortable half-time situation to a nail-biting finale as Barry's sought an equalising goal.The reason for this almost collapse must exercise the minds of all involved between now and the next game which is against Eire Og way out in August, incredibly also. Among the reasons for this regression was the way so many players became so engaged with the referee who they saw as making a series of wrong calls. This may or may not be the case but the obsession with the calls of the referee nearly caused Boyle the game. Indeed the constant disputing of his decisions certainly could not have helped him empathise with Boyle as he brought the ball forward a number of times,had a free retaken from a more advantageous position, yellow carded and eventually red carded a Boyle player and so on. While encouraging fellow players is OK barracking a referee or officials is very counter-productive and just not clever. If as I've said earlier Barry's free-taking was even reasonable they were in with a shout. While Boyle won they need to be conscious that they beat an understrength team (emigration and missing young Keeenan)which to my mind were no better than junior side on the day. Three years ago Boyle failed to progress due to inferior scoring difference. I don't know if that system obtains this year but if it does then this collapse could prove costly. Another flaw in the second half was the old habit of trying to retain the ball on the wrong side of the half way line instead of letting the ball into the inside forward line which had proven so effective in the first half.
So which half is the real Boyle? I think that the answer is in the next game and hopefully some lessons will be learned from Saturday night's game with a more balanced display. Indeed if I was a coach I'd like to review a video of this particular game to see both sides of the coin. Also while I have felt that the gut feeling manager is more of my time  the report of a statistician from this game would also be interesting in terms of frees given against x,y,z, broken ball mop ups, pass completions and interceptions and so on.
Looking at the team in he first half I felt this is a new Boyle team, of youngsters really, and this is the team we'll be following for the next decade or so. There are the likes of Brennan,Furey, Goldrick, McGrath, Enda Smith, the McDermotts, Lavins, Harrington and more, to supplement it in the coming years. As I've been saying from time to time the future looks bright and hopefully the first half last Sunday showed us a glimpse of that future.
It is a pity in term's of the team's performance in the halves, they were in the wrong order.
The team on Sunday was: Tadhg Lowe, Aaron Sharkey, David Callaghan, Cillian Cox, Cian Beirne, Tadhg McKenna, Michael O'Donnell, Sean Purcell(0.1), Ciaran Cox, Jim Suffin (1.0), Mark O'Connor (0.1), Karl Feighan, Donal Smith(0.1fr.), Darren O'Connor (0.2), Lochlainn Conboy (0.6 2fr.). No subs were used so as to ensure eligibility for upcoming junior games. Listed were: Ciaran Beirne, Stephen Tonra, David Kelly, Michael Hanmore, Michael Bermingham, Jonathan Lyons, Marc O'Connor, Colm Brennan, Shane Spellman, Kieran O'Neill, Tomas McGarty, Kieran Supple, Brian, Furey, Enda Smith, Conor Lavin, Peter Lavin.
t.c.
                       

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