Newmarket’s junior footballers recorded a notable victory over Cullen by 0-9 to 0-8 in the latest round of the Ducon Cup played at Newmarket of Friday evening.

John Ryan and Shane Anthony Murphy gave Newmarket the early advantage before Cullen got off the mark in the eighth minute. John Ryan extended Newmarket’s advantage when converting a free as a tight contest developed. Both defences were resolute throughout and scores proved to be at a premium. Cullen added their second point in the twenty third minute but Newmarket finished the half off with a brace of points through John Ryan and a fine effort from Maurice Feehan. This left the half time score 0-5 to 0-2 in favour of the home side.

Cullen stormed out of the blocks after the restart and wiped out their deficit with three quickfire points within four minutes. They maintained their period of dominance and added two further points by the twelveth minute of the half. Newmarket regained their composure and Shane Anthony Murphy and John Ryan slotted over a couple of frees to restore parity at 0-7 apiece by the end of the third quarter. The prolific John Ryan went on to add another two points to his personal tally to edge Newmarket in front with little over five minutes of play remaining. A Cullen point ensured a tight finish but despite a couple of scares and near misses, Newmarket held on for the two points at stake.

Newmarket now have a total of eight points from six games played and are in a good position to qualify for the knockout stages of the competition. Their remaining two games are against Kanturk and Ballydesmond as they strive to make the top six.

The Newmarket team was…

Kevin O’Connor
Donnacha O’Dea		Mark Murphy		Robert Stack
Matthew Fitzpatrick		Brian O’Riordan		Sean Doody
	Kevin O’Sullivan		Colin O’Sullivan
Maurice Feehan (0-1)		Shane Anthony Murphy (0-2)		Shane Murphy
John Ryan (0-6)		Nicky Flanagan		Michael Kenneally
SUBS: John Scanlon and Brendan Stack