Last Tuesday night Fermoy Minor hurlers had their last outing before they break for the exams. They travelled by bus to Brinny to play Valley Rovers on a fine evening. With our strongest team to date they were fresh off the bus and looked to be up for the game. Fermoy got off to a great start getting the first score but Valleys replied with 3 of their own. The first half seemed to be a well contested game for the first 20 minutes with the score standing at 0-5 a piece but the last third of the first half would be all Fermoys way. Through the hurley of Sean McCarthy, Shane O’Keeffe and Adam Creed the lead was brought out to 0-10 to 0-5 at the half. The defensive unit was on lock down and kept valley rovers at bay for that last 10 minute period of the first half.
The second half started with Valley rovers taking there points and shortening the lead but thats where the game took a bad turn. A Valley Rovers player turned and pulled very high and most definitely dangerously on Jack waters, who was very impressive at the corner back role along with Ryan Sargent at full back. For the remainder of the second half Fermoy had an extra man and used it well in smart attacks and sensible play. More often then not the half back line was coming out on top and James, Luke and Jack were smart as a whole. Additional points from O’Keeffe and O’Callaghan made the gap too big for the 14 men of Valley Rovers and Fermoy finished out 0-18 to 0-10 and had a bit of league form heading into the break. Between the junior cert and leaving cert, the rest of the lads would be starting the non exam league where they can all build up some good game time minutes.