It was a long drive to Cullen last Saturday evening and an even longer drive home after being defeated by Ballingeary after putting up a brilliant first half battle. To be fair to the Cullen grounds, they were in excellent condition and ideal for football. It would be Ballingeary to fire out of the traps quickest with 5 points inside the opening 10 minutes. Fermoy would point only to be caught for two more points. Ballingeary looked dangerous in all sense of the word and after 15 high intensity minutes the score laid at 0-2 to 0-7 in favour of the Gaeltacht side. The second quarter of the game would swing back in Fermoy’s favour. Due to changes needed as a result of injury, Darragh O’Carroll and Daniel O’Flynn came into the game in place of Shane Aherne and Kieran Morrison. As the backs began to come out on top, the forwards also fell into form, pointing through Ruairi O’Hagan and co. bringing the game to 0-5 to 0-8 heading into the final quarter of the first half. The game was thrown right into the mix when a surging run from Peter Murphy landed him in front of goal, on the receiving end of a worked in hand pass, turned and blasted past the keeper leaving the score at 1-5 to 0-8. For the remainder of the half both teams were close and the half ended 1-6 to 0-10. The tempo on Fermoy’s side had to be kept up as Ballingeary were beginning to build up steam again.

The second half started close with both teams finding the crossbar but the difference of 1-8 to 0-12 would be the closest Fermoy would get to Ballingeary. On the 38th minute Ballingeary worked a point with an exposed fullback line doing their best but the pace of the opposing team and the space they had was just a bit too much. Femroy also had some unlikely handling problems and were punished with the Ballingeary forwards in form. Between the 40th and 50th minute Fermoy would register a point and the gap was growing. 1-8 to 0-14 turned into 1-8 to 0-19 and Fermoy’s time was running out. The effort was still there but the Ballingeary outfit were just well drilled and able to keep calm. A goal attempt from Rory McEvoy deflected over for a point and that would be Fermoy’s last score. The final 10 minutes played out with not a lot happening only turn overs and unconverted chances. Even until the final minute Fermoy put in the effort but it wasn’t to be their day and Ballingeary would progress on as Fermoy’s footballing year came to an end. The Team lined out as Following; L Colman, A Bargary, P Murphy, S Shanahan, P Clancy B O’Sullivan, T Clancy, J Hutchings, P de Roiste, M Brennan, Alan O’Connor, S Aherne, R O’Callaghan, R O’Hagan, K Morrison. Subs used; D O’Carroll, R McEvoy and  D O’Flynn