The gods are not smiling kindly on the Charlestown Sarsfields senior team in recent weeks as once again they lost out in a very close contest to Aghamore in round 5 Division 1B of the Welcome Inn senior league. The final scoreline showing 3-10 to 3-9 in favour of Aghamore tells only half the story as it was a remarkable game where the Sarsfields came back not once but twice from seemingly hopeless positions.
The Sarsfields fielded without a number of players which depleted their line-up and left them vulnerable as Agahmore were looking to copperfasten their grip on the division which sees them unbeaten to date. The Sarsfields were in trouble at half time as they were 1-7 to 0-4 in arrears with a scoring burst of 1-3 five minutes before half time doing the damage. The hole got bigger for Charlestown when Aghamore kicked on at the beginning of the second with a point followed by a goal leaving them firmly in control as the scoreline read 2-8 to 0-4.
The Sarsfields looked doomed as heads began to drop but they were handed a life line when first Colm Maye crashed a shot to the roof of the Aghamore net following some good tackling by the Sarsfields forward line and the same player followed up a minute later when he converted from the penalty spot following foul on Martin Mulvaney. From no where the Sarsfields were just three points down and this was reduced to two when Jack Reilly fired over a great point from play. Aghamore however regained the initiative with another 1-1 blast as the scores continued to rain down.
This left the home side 3-9 to 2-6 in front with less than eight minutes remaining. Aghamore looked to have the game in the bag but credit to the Sarsfields they continued to attack at every opportunity and points from Reilly , Gareth O`Donnell and Maye from a free reduced the gap to four once again. Incredibly the game took another twist when David Caffrey crashed the ball to the net to put the Sarsfields within a point of the home team and seconds later Jack Reilly levelled with another brilliant point from play to restore parity which looked nigh on impossible ten minutes into the second half.
The scores were tied at 3-9 apiece and there was still plenty of time to fashion a winner with the Sarsfields looking the most likely as they had all the momentum and were winning an amount of ball in the middle third. The Sarsfields however spurned a couple of great chances and as in all games of this nature the home side got their chance and caught the Sarsfields napping with a quickly taken free finding its way into the hands of Kenny Feeney who to his credit kicked a great point from distance to edge the home side ahead in what was a rip roaring game . The Sarsfields had one last chance to level matters but their effort came up short and for the second Sunday in succession they came out the wrong end of another very marginal scoreline. As a contest the game had everything from great goals, brilliant point taking, handling errors, misplaced passes, excellent attacking play, high fielding all played in a very sporting and competitive atmosphere.
The Sarsfields while ultimately losing out can be proud of their response as twice they came back from the dead to almost snatch the spoils at the death. They had terrific performances from the likes of Gareth O`Donnell, Jack Reilly, Kevin Deignan, David Caffrey, Colm Maye Gerard McLoughlin and Patrick Walsh. The Sarsfields will be looking to re-boot their promotion hopes with games against Ballinrobe and Ardnaree on the horizon in the next number of weeks.
