Newmarket’s minor footballers quest for county honours ended when they were defeated by a strong Carbery Rangers side, 1-11 to 1-8 in the quarter final played at Macroom on Saturday evening last.

The Carbery champions stormed out of the blocks with a third minute goal sandwiched between a brace of early points. They maintained their period of dominance and added three more points by the end of the opening quarter. Newmarket eventually got off the mark when the impressive John Ryan slotted over two quickfire points. Carbery Rangers pointed next but John Ryan again, was on target for a Newmarket side that was now contesting well in all sectors of the field. Nicky Flanagan pointed as the sides exchanged two points before Newmarkets task received a timely boost on being awarded a penalty in the closing moments of the half. For the second time in a week, Brian O’Riordan stepped up and confidently converted the kick. This left the score reading 1-7 to 1-4 at half time.

Carbery Rangers increased their lead within four minutes of the restart and added another score seven minutes later. Newmarket battled away but had to wait until the end of the third quarter before adding to their total when Billy Hourigan pointed. Carbery Rangers edged further towards victory with two more points to build up a six point lead and time closing in. Newmarket rallied and Nicky Flanagan added two points within a minute. John Lane was also on target but ultimately time ran out for Newmarket who finished the contest very strongly.

Newmarket had a number of fine individual performances with John Scanlon and Robert Stack prominent in defence. Kevin O’Sullivan competed throughout while John Ryan was superb in attack with Nicky Flanagan also in fine form.

Ian Flanagan
Brendan Stack		John Scanlon		David Guiney
Robert Stack		Bart Daly		Brian O’Riordan (1-0)
	Kevin O’Sullivan		Conor Cronin
Brian O’Connell		John Ryan (0-3)		Nicky Flanagan (0-3)
John Lane (0-1)		Shane Drumm		Jerry McCarthy
SUBS: Paul Cashman, Billy Hourigan (0-1), Danny Allen