Inishowen made the long journey to Carrickfinn on Saturday to meet Tir Choniall in the north west minor league. The men from the west of the county had a strong finish to their first competitive season but seem to be suffering from second season syndrome at the minute, like many other clubs emigration, college and injuries have hampered their progression.
The visitors won the toss and choosing to play into the strong gale in the first half they received the ball, looking to attack from the start good ground was made through the forwards against a dogged and determined defence. With handling errors from both sides possession switched hands a number of times allowing both packs to test each other in the scrum. The hosts took the lead when prop Gary Gallagher showed good skills to pass out of the tackle to veteran Eugene Doogan who scored under the posts, the conversion attempt was successful giving Tir Choniall a 7-0 advantage.
From the restart Inishowen regained possession through a lineout and good ground was made with David Cassidy and James McColgan punching holes in the centre. The visitors scored wide on the right after strong running from Cassidy and winger Ritchie Fearon allowed hooker Maurice Harkin to crash over, the difficult conversion was missed leaving the score line at 7-5.
Another Inishowen score before half time was scored under the posts by McColgan and Mark Glasha added the extras to give Inishowen the lead 12-7. The visitors were happy to go into the break with the lead knowing they would have the strong winds at their back in the second half, the breakdown was also a concern as Tir Choniall had been disrupting rucks and the Inish men knew they needed to tighten up.
The second half started with the hosts kicking off and with the wind picking up they didn’t kick the required 10 metres resulting in a scrum to Inishowen on the half way line. The Inish men started to control the game using the wind to their advantage kicking into the corners, Ritchie Fearing switched places with Cassidy in the centre and linked well with Glasha at 10 while Cassidy continued to cause problems with his powerful runs from the wing.
A penalty opportunity arose and Glasha slotted it over leaving the visitors two scores ahead, a score wide on the left from Norris returning to the team after a long absence followed shortly afterwards and McColgan added his second of the day again under the posts and Glasha added the conversion. The final score of the day came from number 8 Colm Sweeney on the right hand side with substitute Joe Doherty unlucky to see his conversion attempt come back off the upright.
Tir Choniall will no doubt be disappointed with the result but should take some consolation from their performance especially in the first half, hopefully they will get the luck they deserve in the coming weeks and start seeing some results going their way.
After soup and sandwiches in a local pub the president of Tir Choniall Eugene Doogan kindly joined the travelling party on board the fun bus and showed them some of the local sites mainly another pub this time situated in the town of Dungloe. Unfortunately (for some) the “short cut” home was actually a long detour round the west of Donegal, luckily a number of beverages had been purchased in Tesco’s Letterkenny that morning and this helped keep the boredom at bay along with a few songs that strangely all had the same chorus. On the anniversary of the original MJHD cup a fierce battle ensued with a number of people putting their name in the hat, a young chap who played at number 2 went home victorious much to the disappointment of previous winner Richie Fearon. Crawford Norris attemted to steal the cup with a straw and a bottle of anti-freeze but was no match.
Next week the league continues with a journey to county rivals Donegal town.
