Nortel - Connaught Inter-Firm Champions 2004
Nortel triumphed in the Connaught Final on Saturday last (November 27th) against MBNA of Carrick-on-Shannon by a score of 3-13 to 1-7 on a soggy St.Marys pitch, to add the 2004 Connaught title to their hard-won Galway County title. The team lined out as follows:
Kieran O'Malley, Michael Carolan, Derek Joyce, Sean Naughton, James Frain, Ciaran O'Boyle, Tom Bennett, Shane Kelly, Barry Dooney, Sean Burke, Martin Coleman, Damien O'Carroll, Colm McDonnell, Colm Cleary, Pat Stewart, with substitutes David Dunne, Jeff Noone, Shane McCarron, Paul McDermott, Greg Cleary and Brian Gardiner.
After a slow and error-strewn start, Nortel soon found themselves three points
to one down as the MBNA forward line won early ball and the Galway team
struggled to come to terms with the playing conditions. However, as the half
went on, Shane Kelly and Barry Dooney began to dominate midfield and Colm
McDonnell and Pat Stewart started to edge the 50/50 balls in the full forward
line.
Nortel put over points from a number of frees and won a penalty, converted by Pat Stewart, to leave the score 1-5 to 0-6 in the team's favour at half time. In the second half, Nortel started convincingly this time and both the half back and full back lines were totally dominant over the MBNA forwards.
Up front, the team put together a number of slick hand-passing moves, culminating in 2 further goals from Pat Stewart (making him the hat-trick hero) and a series of well-taken points from Colm McDonnell, Shane McCarron, Martin Coleman, Damien O'Carroll, Paul McDermott and Colm Cleary.
MBNA could only manage one very dubious goal and a point from a free, as the Nortel back-line, to a man, martialled by Ciaran O'Boyle and Derek Joyce, snuffed out many attacks. The maximum 5 subs were used to give the team some fresh legs in the heavy conditions and all 5 subs - Dave Dunne, Jeff Noone, Shane McCarron, Paul McDermott and Greg Cleary - put in strong performances to ensure that there was no way back for MBNA.
Nortel will face Tara Mines in the All Ireland Semi-Final in Galway at Castlegar Pitch on Sat 3rd December - throw in 2pm.
