This Sunday sees Annacurra face Eire Og in the 2010 Darcy Sands Intermediate county final. To get into championship spirit, check out our gallery and see reports from years gone by. We hope to have a live feed for the game on our club page. (See twitter below) or our facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Annacurra-GAA/210853230755) on Sunday. If not, our opponents Eire Og keep up to date reports on Twitter. Their feed is on http://twitter.com/EireOgNCL

Annacurra made it two wins from two in the D’arcy Sands Intermediate Championship with an eleven point win over Avondale recently. Coming into the game on the back of a big win over the “billies”, Annacurra picked up where they left off.

Against Ballymanus, an early Shane O’Keefe goal set the Derrysiders on their way to maximum points and it was a case of de ja vu as we found the back of the net within two minutes against Avondale. A Patrick Moules effort rebounded off the crossbar into the hands of Ian McDonald who turned the Avondale keeper to bury the ball in the net. Alan Horan set up Patrick Moules and Shane O’Keefe for two points and the scoreline read 1-2 to 0-0 after 7 minutes. Avondale started extremely slow and started to launch high balls into 6ft 5 Conor McGraynor in search of scores. The full forward kicked two wides before he found his range from a free after 10 minutes and he assisted Eugene Dunne in scoring Avondale’s second point to bring the difference back to a goal. Alan Horan was making a vital contribution to Annacurra’s attacks and the midfielder set up Ian McDonald for another point after receiving a pass from William Codd in the 13th minute. All would be quiet for another 8 minutes until a run by Alan Byrne was spotted and his left footed shot was pushed to safety by the Avondale goalkeeper. Worryingly, Annacurra would not score for 17 minutes in the half but thankfully, we were not punished by Avondale who only added two points in that space of time through Conor McGraynor and Ian McDonald. A quick free by Pierce O’Brien found Patrick Moules in space and his turn and shot ensure Annacurra would go in at half time with a three point lead.

The second half started and all the pressure was from Avondale who scored two points in the first five minutes to leave a single point in the difference for the first time. Annacurra had kicked a number of wides during the barren spell in the first half and they kicked three more in the first 7 minutes of the second half. However, a rapid fire blitz from Annacurra would know Avondale for 6 in the next five minutes and Annacurra would almost be home safe and sound. First, Alan Horan again set up Alan Byrne for a point in the tenth minute and from the resulting kickout, Patrick Moules ran at the Avondale defence to register another point. From this kickout, Alan Horan caught  the ball under pressure from Barry Sheehan and fed Patrick Moules. An angled run by Patrick Moules at the Avondale goal drew two defenders to him and he found the loose Ian McDonald on the edge of the square who turned back away from goal and found the corner of the net. However, Annacurra were not finished yet and Clive Horan found Liam Moules trying his luck up the field and the Annacurra number 3 knocked over a point to make it 2-7 to 0-6 after 12 minutes of the second half.  Annacurra would go 15 minutes without adding to this total but they did have chances including a goal chance by Alan Byrne who’s effort dropped just wide of the post after an audacious lob. Avondale only kicked one wide in this period of time as possession was mainly fought for between the two teams 45’s. Pierce O’Brien made another venture forward and his pin point pass into Clive Horan resulted in the dry spell ending in the 27th minute. Eugene Dunne responded in the 28th minute for Avondale but it was too little too late. Patrick Moules added his final point of the night in injury time and straight afterwards, Clive Horan robbed Avondale of possession as they tried a short kickout. He found Ian McDonald who attacked the goal and squared across for Alan Byrne to find the net and an eleven point victory.

Annacurra: S.Doyle, S.McAllister, L.Moules (0-1), D.Thompson, W.Codd, P.O’Brien, C.Byrne, A.Horan, A.Byrne (1-1), M.O’Brien, P.Moules (0-4), M.Healy, C.Horan (0-1), I.McDonald (2-1) and S.O’Keefe (0-1) Subs: P.McDonald & P.Clancy

Did You Know: Annacurra have scored 3 goals in each of the last 3 games