O Leary Cup Final – U 17 Tipperary Schools B Hurling
A unique final of the O Leary cup between Colaiste Phobal Roscrea and Cistercian College Roscrea was played at a sun drenched St Cronans Park Roscrea on Thursday last.Nothing like a local derby to get the temperatures rising and with conditions just perfect this proved to be a very enjoyable contest.Colaiste Phobal sprinted out of the blocks and got off to a dream start with an early goal blitz from Liam Seacy and the inform Joe Fogarty.David Jones , Gearoid Murphy and Paul Costello and team captain Jason Gilmartin were all winning their battles as the colaiste fowards went on a scoring spree for the first twenty minutes and raced into what proved to be an unasailable lead.

Bit by bit the Cistercians began to improve mainly to the efforts of the players like Jay Culleton and Jack Canning. Unfortunately for the Cistercians during this period the Cistercian lads missed a number of score able frees which would ha e lessened the gap between the sides at the interval.

The Cistercians improved after half time with Jack Canning now operating at full forward and posing problems fon the Colaiste defence, but with Cillian Ryan in outstanding format at centre back and wing backs Stephen Carey and Roddy Teehan and Geariod Sampson doing a good job at full back, assisted by Jack Bourke and Jack Kirwan scores were still hard to come by. Roddy Teehan at wing back had an outstanding game throughout the second half for the Colaiste . Coleman Treacy and Daniel Ryan had the upper hand at midfield all day. The second half was a well contested affair with the Cistercians getting in for two goals and several points from Jack Canning. Mark Fanning was in top form in goals for CPR.
Paul Costello then scored a brilliant individual goal for the Colaiste to make the game safe. In the end Colaiste Phobal won on a score line of 5-17 to 3-14 as the Cistercians lads tried to reel in that early goal blitz. Which they never got close enough to put real pressure on the Colaiste lads. Yet it was a real entertaining game with tremendous skill and fast hurling on view and some brilliant scores to enjoy.

Great credit to both teams for a great display of sporting endeavour.