Lisbellaw claimed an eighth successive Fermanagh County title having always held the upper hand against a young Lisnaskea outfit, at Brewster Park on Sunday. The game itself was always going to be an extremely tough one for Lisnaskea, who were going in as big underdogs against a side who will be competing in this year's Ulster Senior club event for the first time ever.
Lisbellaw were to race into an early two point lead, first up Declan McGarry fired over from over 40 yards before a fine Ryan Bogue turn gave his side a two point cushion. Shea Curran finally settled Lisnaskea's nerve with a well worked score after great play between Mark Curran and Paul McGoldrick.
A Sean Corrigan free was soon followed by a goal from Declan McGarry. Ryan Bogue had made a tremendous run before off loading to McGarry who buried to the back of the net to give Adrian Smith no chance in the Lisnaskea goal, Lisbellaw making a perfect start and lead 1-04 to 0-01 after 11 minutes.
Lisnaskea though were giving it their all and Shea Curran was proving to be a real handful for the Lisbellaw defenders, first up he scored a wonderful point and then set up Francie McBrien who made no mistake. Oisin Boyle then made a fine catch in the middle of the field and he was to deliver a perfect pass into the talented Paul McGoldrick who slotted over to make it 1-04 to 0-04 midway through the opening half.
Lisbellaw though stretched their lead with two class individual scores coming from JP McGarry and then Tommy Cleary to make it 1-06 to 0-04.
Paul Teague responded with a strong run and point to make it 1-06 to 0-05, but for all of Lisnaskea's fine play, Lisbellaw were able to raid forward and pick off scores. Again this was to happen with a Declan McGarry point following great control by Ryan Bogue to set him up.
Sean Corrigan then got in on the scoring act with a terrific point from a tight angle to make it 1-09 to 0-05 with half time looming.
Right on the stroke of half time McGoldrick slotted over the bar and it left the half time score 1-09 to 0-06 in Lisbellaw's favour.
Lisnaskea started the second half brightly with a strong surging run by Shea Curran saw him feed Ryan Murphy who made it a five point game.
This was to be as good as it got for Lisnaskea however as a strong Lisbellaw side then got going again. Sean Corrigan sent over a free and Lisbellaw were rewarded with a penalty after Brian Jones had been impended in the square.
Cathal McGarry made no mistake from the resulting penalty and when Sean Corrigan once again strode forward to point Lisbellaw had raced into a 2-11 to 0-07 lead with 43 minutes played in the game.
Lisnaskea duo Barry Smith and Kevin Mohan teed up Paul McGoldrick to score and Shea Curran, who was proving to be a constant threat throughout for Lisbellaw, also chipped in with a point to make it 2-11 to 0-9.
Lisnaskea were unable to keep their high tempo game going though as Sean Corrigan and Fergus Bannon both scored for the champions to make it 2-13 to 0-11 with a matter of minutes remaining, the Bannon point richly deserved as he showed great tenacity to win an aerial battle before striking from distance.
Brian Jones then set up Ciaran McTeague for Lisbellaw and he made no mistake with his effort as it crashed in under the crossbar while Corrigan followed up with another goal.
Lisbellaw further added to their tally with a point from Michael Williamson who galloped a full 70 yards from the wing half back position right up to the 21 yard line before tapping over to give the Lisbellaw another Fermanagh County title and a fully deserved victory.
Lisbellaw will know that they are set to face a much sterner test in the Ulster club series when they come up against the Armagh champions while for Lisnaskea, their young side can only improve and they showed enough clever tackling and stick work to show that they are a side on the up.
Players View Andrew Breslin (Lisbellaw) "We are very happy with the win, we aren't going as well as we would have liked for this time of the year but injuries have hit us hard. However, on the plus side it allows our younger players to step up to the plate and to prove their worth on the team and thankfully they have certainly done that.
Games against Lisnaskea are never easy and always extremely tight and tense affairs, thankfully we kept our frees to a minimum as they are known for being deadly accurate with them.
The game wasn't a comfortable one as in hurling teams can score goals pretty quickly and sway the balance very quickly, our defence was teak tight throughout and it was something we had aimed for today.
Lisnaskea really are a credit to hurling and if they keep working hard you can see the younger players are learning all the time. However hurling in the county is only going to become more difficult to sustain if the County board don't put into place a rigorous hurling development plan as seen in our neighbours Cavan which is now slowly paying off for them.
We now look forward to a shot at the Ulster club series at senior level for the first time ever and we know it's going to be difficult. It's going to be a huge step up from what we have been used to after winning last year's intermediate title. Overall were looking forward to it and will give it the best possible preparation we possibly can." Eoin Mahon (Lisnaskea) "We are hugely disappointed with the final result, we felt we played better than the final score showed. But at the start of the year the Ulster Junior championship was the aim and nothing has changed from that. There would be very few junior teams who get to play a team in the senior championship so that is bound to help us in the long run.
Hopefully now we can keep injury free as we have a small squad and give the Ulster championship a good go.
We felt that we had a very good chance going into the game as Lisbellaw were missing a few of their starters so we had hoped to replicate what the Antrim U21s had done on Saturday and win against the odds. The first half was good and I felt we competed very well with them and at half time we definitely felt that we were still in with a chance of winning the game. However, their penalty in the second half really knocked us, once they scored that we found it very hard going and they were able to knock over the scores that put us away unfortunately.
Full credit to Lisbellaw they are a superb side and best of luck to them in the Ulster club championship."
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