Over 35s Relive the Glory Days! ⚫️🟠

On Saturday, Na Piarsaigh entered a team into the Frankie and Micko Over 35s Football Cup hosted by Bishopstown GAA. The call went out wide and far and it was answered by some brave souls wishing to roll back the years!

The lads had 3 games against Bishopstown, Douglas and Ballincollig and unfortunately lost out narrowly in all 3 games!

First game started with a cagey opening, both teams trying to find their feet early on as evident by Colin Hourigan lining out at full forward racing out to the first ball and a leap like David Clifford only to miss the ball entirely. It was end to end action with both teams kicking on the front foot, possibly more to do with fitness! Na Piarsaigh had lots of possession but weren’t converting the chances as they snatched at a few. Bishopstown kicked the opening two scores and took a HT lead of 0-2 to 0-0, with our backs albeit on top with Alan Brady and Ian McCormack defending well in the full back line. HT came and the game changers were rolled on, Colin Sull orchestrating the attack from Center Forward like Gooch Cooper and Ken Sull inside with sharp runs. This led to a great chance when a ball was floated across to the 21 line and Hourigan claimed it in full flight and tore open the defence to go 1 v 1 with the keeper only to miss the chance! Substitution was called and off he came after missing a glorious chance! Bishopstown in turn went down to kick another point and lead by 3 and unfortunately we couldn’t manufacture another goal chance. Losing 0-3 to 0-0.

Game 2 was against Douglas and the team upped the ante here as although going behind early on Na Piarsaigh got their first score through Ken Sull with the wise option to punch it over the bar although a goal might have been on. Losing 0-3 to 0-1 at HT, Na Piarsaigh kicked on at the start of the second half orchestrating a few moves from back to front but it was the old route 1 long ball into the square where John Gardiner got up to punch the ball home and get a goal. This was followed up by another great move that saw Michael Twohig get on the end to score a point, winning 1-2 to 0-3 at this stage. Douglas though came back and manufactured a few dodgy frees and eventually took the lead and time ran out on Na Piarsaigh, a much improved performance.

The third game against Ballincollig proved to be Na Piarsaighs best performance in an end to end cracker of a game, although it didn’t look like that for the first 5 minutes. Ballincollig raced out of the traps and had 3 goals inside the opening 5 minutes and goalkeeper Gavin O’Sullivan was injured in the process needing to be replaced by Jamie Boland. Finally Na Piarsaigh upped the ante realising they needed to push on and a well worked move from defence finished with a scrappy soccer style finish from John Gardiner, they all count! Another point then followed just before another dubious decision didn’t go our way after Michael Twohig hit the post and Pat Sheehan was bundled over in the box on the rebound, no penalty! A wind picked up for the second half and Na Piarsaigh used it to their advantage most evidently when Colin Sull curled one over left leg from the corner. A few more scores from Cian O Mahony, Michael Twohig were followed with a brilliant goal from Ronnie McGregor. Na Piarsaigh kept on coming and although Darren Mannix raced through on the end line he did the wise thing taking his point and although the lads huffed and puffed they couldn’t get that last goal to win the game losing 3-5 to 2-6.

At this stage the age started to become evident and wisely both Na Piarsaigh and Ballincollig agreed to play the 3rd/4th place play off as penalties.

Albeit Ballincollig officially won the shootout 2-0, Na Piarsaighs fifth take still stepped up to round off the day. Up stepped Colin Hourigan to redeem himself and he stuck it in the top corner to the applause of all the fans!

Well done to the lads on a fantastic day out, where there was great support also. Big thanks to Brian Gardiner for pictures and helping out through the day.

The lads will be back training in the near future for next year! ⚫️🟠

Panel of players:

Gavin O’Sullivan

Jamie Boland

Ian McCormack

Alan Brady

John Twohig

Johnny Hourigan

Darren Mannix

Gearoid Fitzgerald

David Gardiner

Mark Prendergast

Cian O Mahony

John Gardiner

Colin Hourigan

Pat Sheehan

Michael Twohig

Graham Casey

Ronan McGregor

Colin O Sullivan

Ken O Sullivan