Deane delivers as Carbery footballers have too much for Beara

RISING HIGHEST: Beara's Joe O'Neill and Carbery's Sean Ryan. Pic: Anne Marie Cronin.

Cork PSFC 

Carbery 1-12 Beara 0-8 

Carbery proved too strong for Beara in this evening’s Bons Secours Cork PSFC Divisions/Colleges preliminary section semi-final at Wolf Tone Park, Bantry.

Former Cork senior Ruairí Deane played a pivotal role in his team’s victory. The Bantry Blues forward scored 1-7 including a superbly finished 53rd minute goal.

Ben Murphy, Brian O’Driscoll and Colm O’Driscoll also impressed for a Carbery team that retained possession intelligently and used their deep-lying runners to cause havoc in the Beara defence.

The losers will look back on a litany of wasted scoring opportunities and were over-reliant on Connor Lowney for scores in the second half. In truth, Beara could have little argument with the final outcome.

The latter entered their latest preliminary Divisions/Colleges section clash on the back of a defeat to Avondhu and encouraging win over Muskerry. As for their opponents, an 11-point hammering of Imokilly suggested Carbery possessed the necessary weaponry to trouble Beara’s defence.

So it proved as the south western division built a 0-6 to 0-4 interval lead. Sean Daly and Ruairí Deane punished persistent Beara indiscretions form placed balls with terrific Dave O’Sullivan and Colm O’Driscoll efforts rounding off an impressive opening half for the eventual winners.

A mis-firing Beara relied on Jason Harrington, Sean O’Sullivan and Paul O’Neill to keep in touch. The latter were offered a lifeline shortly after the resumption when Kevin Keohane was black carded.

Instead, Carbery outscored their oppponents 0-4 to 0-1 in the ensuing 10 minutes to move 0-10 to 0-5 ahead.

Deane (two frees), Daly (free) and the excellent Brian O’Driscoll were the key scorers in that time period. Conor Lowney kept Beara in touch from frees for the remainder of the half until Ruairí Deane finished off a flowing move with a superb shot into the top corner to make it 1-10 to 0-7.

Two more Deane scores wrapped up Carbery’s win during the closing stages. Beara attempted a comeback but repeated lofted balls into their opponent’s square came to nothing.

Thursday night’s outcome means Carbery face Avondhu next week. The outcome of that encounter will decide who joins MTU Cork, UCC and Duhallow in the final stages of this year’s Cork PSFC Divisions/Colleges section.

Scorers for Carbery: R Deane (1-7, 0-6 frees), S Daly (0-2, 0-2 frees), D O’Sullivan, C O’Driscoll and B O’Driscoll (0-1 each) Scorers for Beara: C Lowney (0-4, 0-3 frees, 0-1 45’), P O’Neill (0-2, 0-1 free), S O’Sullivan (0-1 mark) and J Harrington (0-1 each).

CARBERY: C Ryan (Ballinascarthy); R O’Connor (St Mary’s), B Murphy (St Colum’s), D Scannell (St Mary’s); R Hourihane (Kilmacabea), B O’Driscoll (Tadgh MacCárthaigh), D Kiely (Barryroe); K Coakley (Bantry Blues), S Ryan (Ballinascarthy); G O’Callaghan (Gabriel Rangers), C O’Driscoll (captain, Tadgh MacCárthaigh), O Scannell (Kilmeen), S Daly (Randal Óg), R Deane (Bantry Blues), D O’Sullivan (Barryroe).

Subs: P O’Driscoll (Gabriel Rangers) for K Coakley (24), K Keohane (Kilmeen) for R Hourihane (30, inj), K O’Driscoll (Gabriel Rangers) for D O’Sullivan (53), C O’Connor (St Colum’s) for O Scannell (57), O Corcoran for S Daly (59).

BEARA: W O’Sullivan (Adrigole); E O’Shea (Urhan), E Murphy (Garnish), C O’Shea (Urhan); J Harrington (Adrigole), M O’Shea (Urhan), R O’Drisoll (Garnish); B T O’Sullivan (captain, Garnish), F Finnear (Castletownbere); D Hanley (Castletownbere), P O’Neill (Garnish), J O’Neill (Castletownbere); S O’Sullivan (Adrigole), C O’Sullivan (Urhan), D Dunne (Castletownbere).

Subs: J O’Shea (Urhan) for C O’Shea (30), C Lowney (Urhan) for D Hanley (30), Conor O’Sullivan (Urhan) for C O’Sullivan (inj, 46), T Murphy (Castletownbere) for F Finnear (55), D Crowley (Urhan) for E O’Shea (58).

Referee: R Whelan (Aghada).