![\"Conor](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/5064405_6_articleinline_HC_20SHL_20Fr_20O_27Neills_20Douglas_203.jpg\" "\\"Conor")
Conor Kingston of Douglas holds off the challenge from Jack Finn of Fr O’Neill’s during their Red FM SHL match at Aghavine. Picture: Howard Crowdy<\/p>\n\n
Fr O\u2019Neill\u2019s 0-17\u00a0Douglas 0-21\n <\/p>\n
Douglas made it back-to-back victories and moved to the summit of the Red FM Division 1 Hurling League, with a hard-fought four-point victory over bottom-placed Fr O\u2019Neill\u2019s at Aghavine on Friday night.<\/p>\n
Coming into the evening with three wins from their opening four games, Douglas knew another strong display would see them leapfrog St Finbarr\u2019s and move level on points with Midleton at the top of the standings.<\/p>\n
The form guide has been less kind towards Fr O\u2019Neill\u2019s, who propped up the table coming into the round five meeting. Yet to register a point this campaign, the East Cork outfit began with intent, and picked up the opening score of the meeting two minutes in when Kevin O\u2019Sullivan notched the first of his nine scores.<\/p>\n
A much-changed Douglas, missing the quality of Shane Kingston, hit back immediately and in style, with Charlie Lucas and Joseph Harte scoring in quick succession to put the visitors ahead. <\/p>\n
Fr O\u2019Neill\u2019s were without their own Cork stars as Declan Dalton and Ger Millerick were unavailable though Paudie O’Sullivan was in goal, but that didn\u2019t dampen their spirits, and they soon found themselves back level after nine minutes, with Mark O\u2019Keeffe driving his effort between the posts.<\/p>\n
The scores kept coming as Douglas rattled off seven without reply between the 11th and 21st minutes to take some control of proceedings. Two white flags in a minute, courtesy of Mark O\u2019Brien and Sean O\u2019Leary, got the Southsiders in the groove before efforts from Andy O\u2019Connell, another from Charlie Lucas, one from Mark O\u2019Brien, and two from Cillian O\u2019Donovan pushed Douglas further ahead. <\/p>\n
Conor Kingston of Douglas holds off the challenge from Jack Finn of Fr O’Neill’s during their Red FM SHL match at Aghavine. Picture: Howard Crowdy<\/p>\n
Douglas were dealt a blow when influential corner-forward Brian Turnbull limped off in the 21st minute with what looked to be a hamstring issue. Also missing the evergreen Alan Cadogan, Douglas struggled to build on their momentum, adding two further scores before the half was out. Mark O\u2019Brien grabbed himself another in the 29th minute, while Mark Howell got his name on the scoresheet in stoppage time.<\/p>\n
The end of the first half belonged to Fr O\u2019Neill\u2019s. Kevin O\u2019Sullivan added an extra three points to his tally between the 22nd and 26th minutes, while Mark O\u2019Keeffe and John Millerick also chipped in. Having looked in bother 10 minutes earlier, the hosts had managed to cut the lead back to a modest four points, leaving the score at 0-7 to 0-11 in favour of Douglas going into half-time. <\/p>\n
The entertainment continued into the second half. Douglas struck through O\u2019Brien in the first minute after the restart, but their opponents from Ballymacoda came roaring back, racking up five scores in six minutes to level affairs as John Millerick, O\u2019Sullivan, and O\u2019Keeffe all played their part in dragging the hosts back into contention.<\/p>\n
Level after 39 minutes, the opponents continued to go blow for blow. John Millerick, Kevin O\u2019Sullivan, and Rob Cullinane continued to add points for Fr O\u2019Neill\u2019s over the next eleven minutes, while Cillian O\u2019Donovan, with two, and O\u2019Brien added more scores for Douglas.<\/p>\n
Heading into the final 10 minutes level at 15 points apiece, it was anyone\u2019s guess as to who would go on and win. Fr O\u2019Neill\u2019s players contributed so much to the cause, but Douglas\u2019 quality began to shine through. Four scores on the trot, three of which came from the hurley of O\u2019Brien and one from substitute Conor O\u2019Donovan, put Ken St Ledger\u2019s men in firm control, as they looked set to move level on points with Midleton at the summit.<\/p>\n
Despite the best efforts of Kevin O\u2019Sullivan, who rounded off a fine individual display with two further scores in additional time, it was too little too late for the struggling Fr O\u2019Neill\u2019s. Cian Baldwin and a final white flag from O\u2019Brien rounded off the scoring for the high-flying Douglas, and condemned Fr O\u2019Neill\u2019s to a fifth successive defeat.<\/p>\n
No goals but a thoroughly entertaining evening of hurling. Fr O\u2019Neill\u2019s can take pride in their performance, while Douglas\u2019 hopes of achieving league success will only grow. <\/p>\n
Scorers for Fr O\u2019Neill\u2019s: K O\u2019Sullivan 0-9 (7f), J Millerick 0-4, M O\u2019Keeffe 0-3, R Cullinane 0-1.<\/p>\n
Douglas: M O\u2019Brien 0-9 (3f), Cillian O\u2019Donovan 0-4 (1f), C Lucas 0-2, J Harte, S O\u2019Leary, A O\u2019Connell, M Howell, Conor O\u2019Donovan, C Baldwin 0-1 each. <\/p>\n
Fr O\u2019NEILL\u2019S: P O\u2019Sullivan; C Lowney, D Harrington, O Steele; D O\u2019Neill, T Millerick, R Kenneally; K O\u2019Sullivan, D Sexton; M O\u2019Keeffe, J Hankard, J Finn; J Millerick, R Cullinane, P Hassett.<\/p>\n
DOUGLAS: D Maher; L Kelleher, B O\u2019Neill, E O\u2019Flynn; C Kingston, M Howell, Cillian O\u2019Donovan; S O\u2019Leary, J O\u2019Brien; D Coleman, M O’Brien, A O\u2019Connell; B Turnbull, J Harte, C Lucas. <\/p>\n
Subs: Conor O\u2019Donovan for B Turnbull (21 inj), C Baldwin for J O\u2019Brien (50).<\/p>\n
Referee: Brian Sweeney (Erin\u2019s Own).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fr O\u2019Neill\u2019s 0-17\u00a0Douglas 0-21 Douglas made it back-to-back victories and moved to the summit of the Red FM…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":428693,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[1965,1964,61,60,112],"class_list":["post-428692","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-hurling","tag-cork-gaa","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428692","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=428692"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428692\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/428693"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=428692"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=428692"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=428692"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}