Crowley strikes late to earn Bandon a replay

Bandon 0-12 Aghada 0-12

With 63 minutes elapsed and the east Cork side holding a precarious 0-12 to 0-11 lead, Crowley stepped up to convert a free from his own 65 after assuming placed-ball duties following the substitution of his brother Ronan.

It looked as if the beaten county finalists of 2007 and ‘08 had blown their chances of reaching the last four as they had allowed a two-point lead with 13 minutes left to evaporate — three points from Aghada’s best performers, Cian Fleming (two) and Trevor O’Keeffe turning the game.

With a wides tally that had reached 18 by the end, Bandon had nobody but themselves to blame for the position they found themselves in. But, when Aghada’s Pearse O’Neill was blown up for over-carrying in the added time, Crowley did the needful to set up the replay.

While Bandon can take a lot of positives from the game, such as the fine performance of Eoghan O’Donovan at wing-back and Charles Dullea’s emergence at midfield as the contest wore on, the poor shooting – most notably early in the first-half when they were comfortably the better team – will be a big concern ahead of the next game.

In contrast, while Aghada were far more economical and had J P O’Connor and Kieran O’Connor to thank for some fine defending, they had to rely on the free-taking of O’Keeffe for a lot of their scores, suffering from the early sending-off of centre-forward Eoin Healy.

That was for striking in the seventh minute, but amazingly it was not the first red card of the match, Bandon’s number 11 Tomás O’Donoghue being dismissed for a head butt with just over two minutes gone.

The extra space in attack seemed to suit the Lilywhites more, however, as Ronan Crowley benefited from the low deliveries to him and Mark Sugrue also revelled in being allowed to run.

In addition, Donagh Lucey was cleaning up at centre-back, but despite such superiority, Bandon’s half-time lead was only 0-7 to 0-4, with nine wides and two good Kieran O’Connor blocks on goal chances, denying Jason McCarthy and Darren Crowley.

The loss of Lucey to injury in first-half injury time disrupted the defensive balance, though, and with O’Keeffe finding his range from frees and Pearse O’Neill becoming more prominent, Aghada were right back in it, Fleming cutting the lead to one with 20 minutes left.

Bandon’s shooting continued to frustrate and Aghada goalkeeper Martin Day also denied Roy Payne and Darren Crowley.

It looked as if it wouldn’t be their day, but they retained just enough luck to share the spoils.

Scorers for Bandon: R Crowley 0-4 (0-3f, 0-1 65), D Crowley (0-1f), M Sugrue 0-2 each, D Lucey, J McCarthy, R Payne, A Johnson 0-1 each.

Scorers for Aghada: T O’Keeffe 0-6 (0-4f, 0-1 65), C Fleming 0-3, P O’Neill, T O’Neill, S Wall 0-1 each.

BANDON: S Murphy; P Crowley, J Burke, J O’Donovan; E O’Donovan, D Lucey, J Walsh; C Dullea, D Crowley; M Sugrue, T O’Donoghue, J Hickey; J McCarthy, R Payne, R Crowley.

Subs: K Hurley for Lucey (30, injured), A Johnson for McCarthy (45), D O’Donoghue for R Crowley (58).

AGHADA: M Day; K O’Connor, JP O’Connor, N Hennessy; T O’Neill, M Russell, C Rice; G Melvin, C Fleming; W Leahy, E Healy, E Savage; P O’Neill, T O’Keeffe, T Wall.

Subs: S Wall for Rice (23), A Cotter for Leahy (half-time), M Galvin for Melvin (38-42, blood), M Galvin for Wall (44).

Referee: J Dorgan (Nemo Rangers).