West Senior Football Championship Semi Final: 

St. Kieran's 2.9 St. Patricks 1.7  

The senior footballers made it two wins from three outings on Friday night with a workman like five point victory over St. Patricks in a sun-drenched Clarina in conditions that were ideal for football. Following on from the disappointment of the West final defeat to Ballysteen it was vital to get off to a good start on Friday night against a St. Patrick's side minus the services of Limerick senior hurler Gearoíd Hegarty but littered with scoring talent up front  such as Eoin Hanrahan, John Mullane and Jeffrey McNamara who have caused us a huge amount of trouble over the years in previous championship encounters. We began the game the brighter with early scores coming from Sean McSweeney and Noel Callanan, Callanan was lucky not to increase our tally drastically early one when he linked up well with McSweeney and cut through the St. Pats defence but his right footed strike was excellently saved by the St. Pat's custodian Jamie Steward. Despite an early two point lead we failed to capitalize on our advantage in the possession states which has proven to be problematic throughout the campaign and the Rhebouge men duly capitalized on this and following some good passages of play took the lead midway through the half with three unanswered points. To be their credit we upped our performance from here with further scores from Paudie McCarthy and an excellently struck goal from a 21 yard free from Sean McSweeney which the Pats defence on the goal line could do little about such was its ferocity put us back into the lead and from here we never looked back. At the back Brendan McCarthy, Mossie Shine and John Doyle worked tirelessly snuffing out any St. Pats attacks while runs from Kevin Meade and Johnny McCarthy were proving difficult for the Pats defence to deal with. With Darragh Treacy now operating at full forward the Pats full back line were finding his physical presence a difficulty to deal with. Despite a number of breakdowns in possession we finally made his presence in the danger zone felt just on the stroke of half time when Treacy's rampaging run carved open the defence and his effort found the back of the net. It was important to take our chances in the second half and try and kill off the game given a strong lead at half time. With second half points from Seamus Mangan, Brian Crowley and frees from Darragh Treacy and Sean McSweeney we led the Rhebogue side by ten points at one stage. To the credit they worked hard to reduce the defecit and brought it back to five points at the final whistle. There were many pleasing aspects of our performance, creating many scoring opportunities but unfortunatey we failed to capitalize on our dominance in the possession stakes. With the two points secured we continue our drive for a place in the business-end of the championship with two games remaining against 2015 champions Newcastlewest and West Champions Ballysteen. Elsewhere in the group over the weekend our next two opponents Newcastlewest and Ballysteen shared the spoils on Saturday night when a last minute free from Ballysteen tied up the encounter while Ballylanders saw off the challenge of Oola to join us on four points.  

 

Team vs St. Patrick's 

Dan Madden, Mossie Shine, Brendan McCarthy, John Doyle, Kevin Meade, Anthony Molyneaux, John O' Connor,  Darragh Treacy, Johnny McCarthy, Donie Nolan, Paudie McCarthy, Noel Callanan, Seamus Mangan, Sean McSweeney, Brian Crowley, Niall O' Shea, Ray Noonan, Cillian Enright, Mike Windle, Diarmuid Crowley, Diarmuid Mulcahy, Ian Mackessy, Anthony Mullins 

 

 

Minor Football: 

Minor football training resumes this evening at 7.30 in coolcappagh for all players who have finished their state exams. Deel Rangers provide our opposition in round two of the west championship on the weekend of July 14.  

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