Under 12 County Championship

Rahoon-Newcastle 4 - 3

 Adrahan 1 - 3

 Rahoon Newcastle took on Ardrahan in the Under 12 County Championship in Tonabrucky on Monday night. Rahoon Newcastle entered the game full of confidence having won there opening two matches in the group. It was a tough night for a game with a strong gale blowing down the pitch making it a game of two halves. However at the end of the day Rahoon Newcastle had a good victory winning on a scoreline of 4-3 to 1-3.

The foundation of this victory lay in Rahoon Newcastles spirited first half performance. Ardrahan won the toss and decided to play with the strong wind in the first half. They only registered 1-2 in the first half with the wind. The Rahoon Newcastle backs found it very tough as the ball was constantly been pucked down on top of them throughout the opening twenty minutes. However each and everyone of them was up for the task. They well marshalled from full back and centre back by Barry Monahan and Ronan Faherty.

The killer blow in the first half however for Ardrahan came when Rahoon Newcastle nicked a goal in one of there rare attacks in the first half. The goal was well finished by Matthew Kelly who had a great game throughout on the half forward line winning some great ball.

Rahoon Newcastle knew at the start of the second half however they faced a tough battle even with the aid of the wind. Ardrahan had a number of very skilful hurlers and they moved these in the second half to play across the half back line. It was not long however before Rahoon Newcastle got on the score sheet with a well taken point from Andy Dunne, who was a constant scoring threat whenever he had the ball.

Ardrahan replied within a minute to open a two point gap again and it looked as if Rahoon Newcastle would find it hard to get the scores needed as Ardrahan started winning a lot of ball around the middle of the field.

However that was to be there last score of the game and Rahoon Newcastle outscored them in the last 15 minutes by 3-2 to 0-0.

Brian Ward and Damian Connaughton started winning everything around the middle of the field and James Hurley in the half back line also cleared a lot of ball to the full forward line. The full forward line between them scored

2-2 in the last fifteen minutes with Andy Dunne hitting 1-1, Jason Murphy firing over a great point and Stephen O' Donnell sending a rasper of a shot to the back of the net.

In the final few minutes Damian Connaghton sent in a long shot from the middle of the field which went all the way to the net. Rahoon Newcastle closed out the game and there was no way back for a spirited Ardrahan side.

Rahoon Newcastle played brilliantly throughout and every player had a great game. They will now hopeful go on from here and strengthen there position at the top of this group with three wins out of three so far.

Rahoon Newcastle team: P McGrath, D Sweeny, B Monahan, D Walsh, C O' Grady, R Faherty, J Hurley, D Connaghton(1-0), B Ward, M Kelly(1-0), E Walsh, D Burke, J Murphy(0-1), A Dunne(1-2), S O' Donnell(1-0) Subs: P Gooney for C O' Grady (Half-time), K Derrane for D Burke (Half-time)