It was a lovely Irish summers evening – cold winds, cold rain with a patch or two of blue sky. Our Captain Evan went up for the coin toss and elected to play into the wind for the first half. The match got under-way at 7:10pm and we welcomed the boys from Fingallians to our home ground by gifting them a free which they promptly turned into a goal – not good.The red jerseys then followed up on OTooles with another 2 quick points – 5 minutes in and we were haemorrhaging scores badly.

However the OTooles defenders worked hard to stop the onslaught and steady the ship allowing the rest of the men in green time to get their A game on. Our first score came through the sharpshooting of Luke W who put a long range point over for OTooles – the relief from the OTooles sideline was audible knowing that once we get going we are a hard team to stop. However the reds are no walk over and retaliated with another blitz of an attack period yielding them a further point and goal.

Leading up to half time the lads kept their heads and worked hard to stay in the game. After putting sustained pressure on the reds and working up some great attacks we were rewarded through the wizardry of Conn Rock as he weaved his way through red shirts and buried the sliotar in the back of the net. That goal at the end of the 1st half is what gave players and spectators the belief that we were still in the game.

Half time score – Fingallians 2-3 to OTooles 1-1
Players were frustrated at a few decisions not going there way so the half time talk was heated, Damien had to calm everyone down – once tempers cooled Damien delivered his words of wisdom and shared his cunning plan with the team.

The second half started and the hurling was tough and every OT player gave 110%, every OT man was at his best, and with that they exploded back into the game.As an OTooles supporter it was a much better half to watch – not only did the OT’s boys play well but they had their opposition on the run. We had scores in the 2nd half from Aran K, Conn, and both Luke’s. The reds managed to hang in with the odd point here and there, but the 2nd half was definitely an all green affair.

The score at the final whistle – 4-4 to 4-4 a draw !!!!!!!

The result is bitter sweet – The bitter – the reds are a good team, but if we had our games faces on from the beginning we would’ve had them well beaten – and that would’ve been a great scalp. The sweet – we were beaten in the 1st half but came back strong to win the 2nd half, we never lost our cool and heads didn’t drop – which is an amazing step forward!