On Friday last, Newtown made the journey to Blackrock to take on the home side in their 5th match of the Conroy Senior League.

With this probably our last competitive game before championship it was an ideal match to judge how we were looking for the coming season.

We wee missing two players on the night, both Mike Morrissey and John McCarthy weren't risked with niggly injuries which gave fringe players a chance to stake their claim on a starting place for championship.

One person who did that was Maurice Farrell. This is Maurice's first year playing with Newtown, having followed Dan Riordan's footsteps in transferring from Ballyagran. Maurice fitted in very well to the corner back position (having played so successfully with Mannix Ccollege at full back for a number of years) and will give the selectors plenty to think about this time next week when they sit down to pick the team to play sarsfields in the 1st round of the championship.

Overall it was a good performance, Brendan Mulcahy is going to have to cope better with a full forward who like to catch the ball alot, the midfield is going to have to be more competitive and the younger forwards are going to have to take on more responsibility and not just look for Ben and Jerry, but these things aside, the team is shaping up quiet nicely.

On the night some excellent performances from Pat Mulcahy, Alan O'Brien (snr), Philip Noonan, Gerry O'Connor and Maurice Farrell kept us in touch for long periods of this game and had it not been for our missed penalty and Blackrock goaling from their soft penalty, things could have been alot closer.

On final analysis I think the selectors will be happy enough with this encounter with the county champions. Deep down they will be ruing the loss of Donal Mulcahy and Ian Kelleher, but you'd never know they might yet make an appearance before the end of the year. Watch this space !
Newtownshandrum: Paul Morrissey, Alan O' Brien, Brendan Mulcahy, Maurice Farrell, Philip Noonan, Pat Mulcahy, Gerard O' Mahony, Alan O' Brien, Declan Murphy, Jerry O' Connor, John Paul King, John O' Connor, James bowles,Diarmuid Naughton, Ben O' Connor.

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