Football Minor B County Final
Bandon 4-07
Fermoy 3-07

An extra-ordinary last quarter finish by the never say die Bandon's Minor's ensured they emerged victorious over Fermoy 4-7 to 3-7 in te Minor V Football Championship at Ballincollig last Sunday.

Fermoy dominated this rip-roaring contest for long periods but were abject at the final whistle after Bandon outscored them 3-3 to no score in the last 12 minutes.

In the first half, Fermoy were much the better side and yet led by only a single goal 1-4 to 0-4 at the small whistle.

It took Bandon an awful long time to get to grips with Fermoy and were it not for some poor shooting the margin should have been much greater at the break.

Danger man Adam Murphy at centre forward was double marked all through the game and thus it fell to Eoin McCarthy, David Behan, Timmy McCarthy and Mark O'Regan to plough lonely furrows for Bandon in the opening half.

Timmy put over a long-range side-line kick on the 15th minute to record our first score and we trailed 1-2 to 0-1 then.

Before the break Mark O'Regan kicked two frees and Adam Murphy kicked another free and in truth we had come more into the game in the last 10 minutes of the half and those frees resulted from fouls on our players where substitute Owen Nolan was lively.

Fermoy made the best possible start to the second half scoring 2-1 in the opening 10 minutes and we missed two scorable frees in that period and things looked grim on a score of 3-5 to 0-4 after 11 minutes.

However, Eoin O'Sullivan came out to mid-field from his full-forward berth and his natural athleticism began to change things around for us.

This in turn ensured that Captain Joe O'Mahony became more prominent and wing backs Eoin Hurley and Jordan Fenton pushed way up the field on their markers.

We got our reward on the 15th minute when Owen Nolan netted a loose ball that the Fermoy goalkeeper had spilled.

Fermoy scored two quick successive points to go 3-7 to 1-4 in front on 19 minutes and then came the turn-around or all turn-arounds.

It started when our goal-keeper Ciaran McCarthy made a point-blank wonder save to keep us in the game and ball was played down the field where Mark O'Regan had a point.

Fermoy erred from the kick-out and Gavin O'Connell fed David Behan who goaled and suddenly the score was 3-7 to 2-5.

Mark O'Regan added a pointed free after Fermoy's chief tormentor Eoin O'Sullivan had been pulled down on the 20 metre line.

It was all Bandon now and on the 26th minute Fermoy conceded an own-goal when their keeper could not cope with a great cross from wing-back turned forward Jordan Fenton.

Adam Murphy got the all important winning goal in the last minute after he got away from his two markers and this set up wild scenes of celebrations in Ballincollig amongst the players and their large contingent of supporters.

Special thanks to Frank Lyons, Pat Cadogan, Pat Prendergast and especially Louise O'Regan for looking after this team.

Team, C McCarthy, A Burns, E McCarthy, K Walsh, JF Lehane, D Behan 1-0, E Hurley, J O'Mahony ( c), T McCarthy 0-1(sl), M O'Regan 0-4fs, A Murphy 1-1 (0-1f), G O'Connell, G Collins, E O'Sullivan, C Minihane Subs: O Nolan 1-0