Tipperary Soccer: Old Bridge and Dualla advance in Purtill Cup

Clerihan 0 – 5 Old Bridge

Old Bridge pretty much dominated this game from the start, having the bulk of the possession, but found it hard to fashion any real clear chances against a resolute Clerihan defence.

However, they finally got a stroke of luck in the 18th minute when a stray pass across the back line was picked up by Jack Burke, who made no mistake, finishing to the corner of the net.

After this, and with the home side needing now to come out more in their search for a leveller, The Bridge were happy to sit and pick them off on the counter, getting a second in the 28th minute when Simon O’Donnell cut in from the left, avoided a number of tackles and walloped a shot home from just inside the area.

The second half became a much more open game, with Clerihan stepping up the pressure and creating some half-chances, but leaving themselves open at times.

Just before the hour mark, they were punished again for some slack play when an attempted clearance could only find Sean Martin free and in on goal, and he made no mistake to add a third goal for his side.

This knocked the stuffing out of Clerihan and 12 minutes from time, Shane Foley found the back of the net to round off a good individual performance with a well-deserved goal.

Deep in time added on, Sean Martin capped a fine game with his second and his side’s fifth with almost the last kick of the game, to send The Bridge marching through to the next round of the competition.

Tipperary Soccer: Powerstown come through in Peter O'Reilly Cup shootout

Dualla 2 – 1 Tipperary Town

Flying majestically at the top of Division Two, Dualla swanned to victory against the Division One league leaders Tipperary Town in one of only two ties that survived the Arctic weather conditions in Tipperary at the weekend.

The visitors seemed to have stalled in recent weeks after their bright start to the season, but started this game on the front foot and opened the scoring early on, when Vinnie Godfrey’s super strike capped some excellent play by Tipperary Town.
But this seemed to awaken Dualla and they responded with some excellent performances all over the pitch. They harried and harassed their opponents, pushing a high line, and were rewarded when the excellent Tossy Ryan cut inside two defenders and rocketed the ball to the roof of the net ten minutes before the break to level the game.

This was how it was at half- time, and after the break it was nip and tuck until midway through the half when Dualla started to get on top.

They were dominant and creating chances at will, finally finishing one 15 minutes from the end, when Mikey McDermott got a ball to his feet and moved it quickly onto his right, before slamming the ball to the net.

Dualla finished the game strongly again and could have added more goals, were it not for the woodwork and great defensive clearances by a rattled Town side.

In the end, though, the single goal advantage was enough to put them through to a quarter final, where they will fear no other team as they attempt to secure some silverware for themselves.