Sport

Corkery leads Nemo charge

Colin Corkery played a captain's role as Nemo Rangers retained their Cork Co Senior Football Championship title with a convincing…

Mon Oct 01 2001 - 01:00

Colin Corkery played a captain's role as Nemo Rangers retained their Cork Co Senior Football Championship title with a convincing win over Bantry Blues at Pairc Ui Chaoimh yesterday. He scored 0-10 of his side's total in a display which earned Corkery the man of the match award.

Bantry, champions in 1998, trailed by 0-7 to 0-5 at the break and seemed to be well in contention only for Nemo to blow them away with a scintillating second-half effort, when they restricted their opponents to a solitary point.

Nemo struggled to cope with Bantry's determined play early on as Declan Barron kicked three fine points from play to leave the west Cork club well poised at the interval.

The city side, however, took a stranglehold from the re-start with a couple of Corkery points and another from Alan Cronin opening up a 0-10 to 0-5 after 37 minutes.

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Within a minute Nemo pounced for the only goal to effectively end the game as a contest, even at this early juncture.

The move started deep in defence, where full back Niall Geary, who did a splendid marking job on Philip Clifford, took a quick free.

Nemo worked the ball to Niall Corkery, who sent John Paul O'Neill clear and he finished expertly with a low drive to the bottom corner.

Now 1-10 to 0-5 clear Nemo were well on their way to their 12th title with Corkery completing their tally with two more frees and a couple from play. In between Damien O'Neill claimed Bantry's only second-half point.

NEMO RANGERS: D Heaphy; L Kavanagh, N Geary, I Gibbons; G Murphy, Stephen O'Brien, M Cronin (0-1); K Cahill (0-1), D Kavanagh; D Mehigan (0-1), JP O'Neill (1-0), M McCarthy; A Cronin (0-1), C Corkery (0-10), N Corkery. Subs. Sean O'Brien for Gibbons, M Daly for Stephen O'Brien, L O'Sullivan for D Kavanagh, A Morgan for A Cronin, D Niblock for N Corkery.

BANTRY BLUES: D McAuley; T O'Mahony, M O'Connor, E McCarthy; P Cremin, P O'Regan, N Twomey; D O'Neill (0-1), G Canty; J Barry, S McCarthy, P O'Rourke (0-1); D Barron (0-3), P Clifford (0-1), J Canty. Subs. E Sheehan for Barry, S O'Neill for O'Regan, K Harrington for McCarthy.

Referee. G Harrington (Cork)