Bathshack Antrim Senior Hurling Championship Group One: McQuillan’s, Ballycastle 1-15 O’Donovan Rossa, Belfast 4-14
THE Rossa rebellion has entered its third week and is losing none of its momentum.
Amid the sheeting rain high up in McQuillan Park yesterday afternoon, the Rossa hurlers conquered Ballycastle to set up an intriguing Antrim SHC quarter-final shoot-out with Cushendall next weekend.
Given their sparkling performances to date, it would have been a travesty had the west Belfast men not reached the knock-out stages of this season's brilliant championship series.
No team in Group One played better than Colly Murphy's crew across the last three Sundays - and yet they only managed a third place finish as county champions Dunloy recovered after a couple of stumbles to top the group ahead of St John's.
After being pegged back by the Johnnies and Dunloy, Rossa made sure there were no last-gasp hiccups against Ballycastle who'd moved a few mountains themselves before yesterday's make-or-break encounter.
Four fabulous goals, some awesome score-taking and big hearts saw Rossa canter to the last eight.
Substitute Thomas Morgan bagged two second-half majors, Deaghlan Murphy was on hand to nick an early goal and a Gerard Walsh penalty before the break did the damage on the scoreboard.
Luckless in their two previous championship games, the visitors got their first slice of good fortune in the opening seconds of yesterday's tie when Michael Armstrong's rebounded effort fell kindly to the feet of Deaghlan Murphy who lashed the ball home.
"You were just hoping for that break," said Colly Murphy.
"Today, we got the fluke when the ball came off the post and Deaglan put it in the back of the net.
"You need that wee bit of luck, but again I thought our effort, our skill, everything was fantastic. Fair play to Ballycastle, to a man, I thought they were excellent. What 'Skinner' McAlister has done with them. They were so competitive. The game was so hard but so fair which was testament to every one of the Ballycastle players.
"You look at ‘Clarkey’ [Ciaran Clarke], you look at Mattie [Donnelly] and ‘Boydie’ [Conor Boyd], they’re all class acts.
“But I think we deserved it and hopefully I’m not coming across as biased but I thought we were the better team from the first moment to the last. When we were on top we got our scores which proved decisive. I could nearly repeat what I said word for word last week, I’m just delighted.”
Dunloy and Loughgiel topped their respective groups and go straight into the semi-finals, with Cushendall versus Rossa and St John’s versus St Gall’s facing each another in next week’s two quarter-final ties.
On their quarter-final meeting with Cushendall, Murphy commented: “Cushendall will be red-hot favourites as usual. We’ll play the underdogs as usual. It’s another week of hurling for us. It’s fantastic. They’ve nothing to lose.
"Nobody expected us to be hurling in the shape and form that we’re in. We could be sitting with six points and we’re sitting with three and we came third in the group."
And ‘Skinner’ McAlister feels his native Cushendall have a major game on their hands next Saturday (St Enda's, 4pm).
The Ballycastle manager said: "I thought Rossa’s striking was superb, they were first to every break and their support play was excellent. That’s a damn good team there. They play Cushendall next and I'm sure they’ll not fear Cushendall. They’re a top, top team."
Under threatening grey skies, the fearless rebels of Rossa roll forward - ready for whatever this enthralling championship throws at them.
