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His greater balance and efficiency in the middle of the field’s opposition secured Blackrock a third appearance in the county semifinals in four years.
With each championship exit bringing incremental improvement, a trend that continued into Sunday’s entertaining quarterfinals, Blackrock’s bid for hometown honors has been strengthened considerably with the return to top form of key forward Michael O’Halloran.
O’Halloran, a Fitzgibbon Cup winner with the UCC earlier this year, missed Blackrock’s first two games in Group B due to an ankle injury and, though he saw 24 minutes against Bishoptown in his last game of group, this was their first championship start of 2020..
And what influence he exerted on proceedings, O’Halloran’s fingerprints stained this entire Rockies victory. He had four points in the game scored in the 12th minute, this count increased to five at halftime and seven came to the end.
But more importantly, it was anything but a one-man show in Blackrock’s scoring department. Eight of his teammates also wrote their names on the score sheet, this distribution of contributors is a microcosm for the balanced nature of Fergal Ryan’s side and one that stands in stark contrast to a Douglas team that again leaned heavily on Shane Kingston. , Brian Turnbull and a bit of a moderate Alan Cadogan for scores.
Where the winners had nine different scorers, the aforementioned Douglas trio accounted for 0-18 of their 0-20 total.
The defeated Douglas wasted as much in the second period, five accumulated widths within five minutes of the restart. With the elements behind them, too many players in green and black succumbed to the temptation to try their luck from far off the field. The smartest option, of course, would have been to continue with his first-half policy of feeding his dangerous three at every opportunity.
Five more widths were recorded in the rest of the half, while his decision-making near goal fell apart in the end.
They had gotten off to a brighter start in the second half, points from Kingston (0-2, one free) and Turnbull narrowed the gap to a minimum – 0-15 to 0-14 – in 39 minutes. But the next 11 minutes were owned by his south side opponents, Blackrock hitting Douglas’s lone white flag 1-5 to open an eight-point gap.
A pair of points from Shane O’Keeffe were followed by a well-executed goal from Alan Connolly in the 43rd minute as the forward faced and edged two Douglas defenders before directing the slide to goalkeeper Donal Maher.
A ’65 from Connolly on the next play put the 1-3 unanswered for Fergan Ryan’s team and while a free Kingston temporarily interrupted the Rockies’ dominance spell, more points from spirited sub Tadhg Deasy and O’Halloran left the Scoreboard reading 1 -20 to 0-15 in minute 50.
Douglas’ four in a row halved the deficit, but the required goal did not come.
“Regarding Douglas’s second-half bandwidth, I’d say a lot of it would have been shots taken under pressure from our guys, which is good and what you want,” said Blackrock manager Fergal Ryan.
“We knew that coming here was going to be a difficult task and that our guys stood up is very nice.”
He added: “Michael [O’Halloran] it always seemed dangerous. He has a great hand on him. He’s coming back from a broken ankle. That game will do him a lot of good. ”
The winners led 0-14 to 0-11 at the end of a breathless first half that was level six times.
The first quarter, in particular, saw points from end to end, with the sides tied 0-8 each in the first water break.
O’Halloran was doing the most damage among Blackrock’s forwards, with Kingston and Turnbull showing good at the other end. The latter outplayed Douglas up front after resumption of the game after the water break, but five unanswered points from the Rockies followed through Connolly (free), O’Halloran, John O’Sullivan, Niall Cashman and David O’Farrell to push. 2017 finalists 0-13 to 0-9 up front.
In the end, Douglas’s efforts to completely eliminate this gap were undone with his own erratic shots.
A Connolly (1-6, 0-4 free, 0-1 ’65); M O’Halloran (0-7); C Cormack, S O’Keeffe (0-2 each); D Meaney, N Cashman, D O’Farrell, T Deasy, J O’Sullivan (0-1 each).
S Kingston (0-10, 0-4 free, 0-2 ’65); B Turnbull (0-5); A Cadogan (0-3); C Baldwin, M O’Connor (0-1 each).
G Connolly; S Murphy, G. Norberg, R. Laide; N Cashman, C Cormack, J Ryan; D Meaney, D O’Farrell; S O’Keeffe, C Cormack, M O’Keefe; M O’Halloran, A Connolly, J O’Sullivan.
T Deasy by Cormack (35); J Cashman by D O’Farrell (37).
D Maher; B. O’Neill, D Murphy, C Kingston; E Cadogan, M Harrington, C O’Donovan; C Baldwin, S Moylan; E Dolan, S Kingston, M O’Connor; B Turnbull, C Russell, A Cadogan.
An O’Connell for Russell (43); R Howell for O’Connor (47); R Cotter by M O’Keeffe (56); An O’Callaghan for N Cashman (60).
C McAllister.
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