Fossa were put to the pin of their collar by Cromane on Sunday, but a superb final quarter allowed the league leaders to maintain their position at the summit of Division 4, edging closer to promotion to the third tier for next season after a 1-13 to 2-6 win.
ven though the visitors took a 0-7 to 0-5 lead to the interval, the game was completely turned on its head in the opening five minutes of the second half when Jason O’Connor and Mikey Houlihan both found the net for Cromane, leaving Fossa four points in arrears.
However, the Killarney-based outfit then showed their true colours, with the introduction of Emmet O’Shea off the bench pivotal to their renaissance, and an unanswered scoring burst of 1-4 propelled them back into the ascendancy again, Tadhg O’Shea raising the green flag. Cromane kept battling to the finish, but Fossa held out, and move onto fifteen points.
Ardfert remain hot on their heels in second spot, two points adrift, after they showed their own powers of recovery by putting last week’s surprise home defeat to Keel behind them, travelling to Ballybunion and coming away with a four-point victory over Beale, 0-10 to 0-6.
In extremely breezy conditions, there was nothing between the two sides for long periods, but with Nathan O’Driscoll and man-of-the-match Daithi Griffin the key figures, Ardfert finished the stronger, firing over the final three points of the game to seal an extremely important victory.
Tarbert also remain in the promotion mix, in third place on twelve points, after they managed to overcome the concession of two penalty goals to Nigel O’Connor, to eventually edge out a very hard-fought 1-12 to 2-7 victory in Duagh.
Despite O’Connor’s first spot-kick from the very first attack, the visitors recovered to lead by four points at the interval (0-10 to 1-3), but when the second penalty was dispatched in the second half, the sides were level, before a fortuitous green flag from a free by Tarbert’s star man Andrew Doherty enabled the winners to keep their noses in front to the final whistle.
The performance of the weekend was undoubtedly provided by Knocknagoshel who, now on eleven points and with a game in hand on the sides above them, look to be in a very encouraging position after they came away from Castlegregory with an unexpected 1-11 to 0-13 win.
Though their regular attacking talisman, Edmund Walsh, was his usual productive self, from play and from placed balls, it was youngster Cathal McElligott who notched what turned out to be the game-clinching goal, with centre-back Mike Walsh doing a very solid marking job on home dangerman Thomas O’Donnell.
Elsewhere, Philip O’Connor and Jason Cronin were superb for Cordal in their local derby victory over Scartaglin (1-13 to 0-6), Sean Brosnan scoring the goal for the winners, while Keel continued their impressive recent form with a 3-9 to 1-12 win over Austin Stacks B, brothers Shane and Keith Evans, along with David Couchman, slotting home the vital goals.
