CLOUGHMILLS SAFELY INTO SEMI-FINALS

Intermediate Hurling Championship quarter-final

Cloughmills 0-14 Glenarm 0-5

St Brigid’s Cloughmills qualified for the semi-final of the Intermediate Hurling Championship when they beat Glenarm in Sunday evening’s quarter-final in Armoy.

Last season’s Junior champions were convincing winners in the end but they will be the first to admit that their task was made much easier by the failure of their opponents to take simple scores from both frees and play. While St Brigid’s were efficient and took full advantage of their chances Glenarm were very wasteful and shot a series of very bad wides, especially in the opening half.

Cloughmills made a great start and five excellent points from Gary McCollum (2), Stephen Smith (2), and Conor Laverty gave them an early cushion. Glenarm could have been within a point of them had their radar been more accurate but it was the fourteenth minute before they troubled the scoreboard operator with a point from play by Ronan Matthews. They only managed one more for the remainder of the half while Cloughmills added three more through Mickey Devlin, Ruairi Laverty and Liam Kearns to lead by 0-9 to 0-2 at half-time.

Their good start to the second-half which pulled them three points further clear all but sealed the win for Cloughmills, and they could even afford to miss a penalty, which in truth was well saved by the Glenarm keeper Michael Abram. Again it took Glenarm fourteen minutes to register their first score, this time through Darren Hamill, and by this stage they were chasing the game.

Cloughmills corner-forward Stephen Smith, who again gave an excellent display, knocked over a couple of fine points on the run and Mickey Devlin added another as they pulled clear to book a semi-final place against Division 4 side St Theresa’s who were surprise winners over Glen Rovers Armoy.

CLOUGMILLS – Aaron McNeill, Darren Morrison, John McGuckian, Stephen Martin, Danny McLaughlin, Aaron Smiley, Brendan Martin, Conor Laverty, Michael Morrison, Michael Devlin, Gary McCollum, James Doherty, Ruairi Laverty, Liam Kearns, Stephen Smith.

GLENARM – Michael Abram, Ciaran Mulvenna, Martin Ward, Sean Moran, Ciaran Campbell, Liam Carroll, Padraig McDermott, Ronan Matthews, Kevin Cotrell, Michael Killough, Darren Hamill, Christopher Matthews, Niall Hamill, Conor McNeill, Barry Hamill.

REFEREE – Tommy McIntyre (Loughgiel)

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