SLOW START COSTLY
Coláiste Bhride lose out to strong Bagenalstown outfit
PRES DE LA SALLE COLÁISTE BHRÍDE 3-14 2-14
IT was heartbreak for Coláiste Bhríde Carnew in the Top Oil South Leinster PPS Senior Hurling ‘C’ Final, as the sharp-shooting exploits of Jake Doyle, on top of a pair of goals from the lively Jack Treacy clinched a deserved win for Presentation De La Salle Bagenalstown on Monday afternoon.
Treacy’s first-half brace gave control of the contest to Bagenalstown, despite the best efforts of the influential Owen Young.
The second half, meanwhile, saw Pres keep Carnew at bay, as Doyle seized the game by the scruff of the neck with 1-4 to clinch the title for the Carlow school.
Shortly after seeing his side pass up the opportunity to claim senior hurling silverware, Coláiste Bhride’s manager Kevin Morris would lament his side’s slow start to the game.
Those regrets were merited, as Bagenalstown bagged 1-2 inside the first five minutes.
Jake Doyle kick-started the scoring with a free, before Jack Treacy collected a long ball though the middle and dispatched the ball past Adam O’Donoghue in the Carlow goal. When Fiach O’Toole split the posts shortly thereafter, Carnew were given an early mountain the climb with the score at 1-2 to no score.
To Bhride’s credit, it did not take long for the Wicklow team to drag themselves back into the contest, as a point from Cian O’Tuama, in addition to a Joseph Conroy goal that was a carbon copy of Bagenalstown’s, reduced the arrears to just a single point.
After Owen Young pointed a free to equalise, it seemed as if Carnew were on the ascent. However, the tremendous Bagenalstown pairing of Jake Doyle and Jack Treacy had other ideas.
A long-ball over the top of the corner-back – a tactic which Bagenalstown used frequently, to much success – by Darragh Nolan found Doyle, who himself worked the ball onto Treacy to score his second goal of the day.
Carnew would keep in touch with the opposition as the half wore on -- Owen Young matching Jake Doyle score-for-score – only for Bagenalstown to open up a gap going into the final five minutes through a Doyle score from play, as well as a pair of frees from the same man.
Coláiste Bhride kept coming and would finish the half the stroner, with Owen Young slotting three more frees of his own to send the sides into half-time with the game finely poised at 2-7 to 1-7.
Both teams would make a change each at half-time to freshen things up, but it would be Bagenalstown’s replacement, Kealan Guidera, who would make the most immediate impact.
After Jake Doyle notched his seventh point of the day, Guidera popped up on the right-hand side to extend his team’s lead out to five.
Owen Young would answer with another brace of frees to bring the gap back to a single score.
Heart and determination was keeping Carnew in touch with Pres, but as the game entered the final 20 minutes, the Carlow school turned the screw.
Scores from Fiach O’Toole and Mark Foley, sandwiched between another pair of frees from the irresistible Jake Doyle, brought the difference out to seven, leaving it up to Bagenalstown’s talisman to all-but settle matters with 15 minutes left to play.
A skirmish just outside of the Carnew square saw both sets of players fight doggedly for control on the ground. In amongst the chaos, Jake Doyle scooped the ball up onto his hurl, before lifting the ball over the head of his marker, gathering possession once again, and finally smashing the ball into the top left-hand corner.
It was nothing that Doyle hadn’t deserved for his performance up to that point in the game.
The final was all-but settled at 3-13 to 1-11, but Carnew demonstrated great heart to try and fight themselves back into the contest. Joseph Conroy and Eoin Kavanagh both split the posts, before Owen Young set-up a grand-stand finish with just two minutes left to play.
Standing over the ball on the 45-metre line, Young scooped the ball up onto his stick and unleashed a venomous strike at the Bangelastown goal.
While it initially seemed as if one of the defenders had kept the ball from crossing the goal line, the umpire behind the goal opted to award the goal to Young, reducing the arrears to just four points with additional time still the play.
Ultimately, Carnew ran out of luck in the closing stages. Conroy looked to have been barged off the ball in Pres territory, only for referee Dickie Murphy to award a free the other way, while Aidan Kavanagh had a shot at goal blocked away for a 65.
John Young would step-up to grab a point to bring Carnew back to within a goal of their opposition, but that was to be as good as it got for Coláiste Bhride, as Presentation De La Salle came away with the hard-fought but deserved W.
Scorers: Coláiste Bhride: Owen Young (1-10; 0-10f), Joseph Conroy (1-1), Cian O’Tuama (0-1), Eoin Kavanagh (0-1f), John Young (0-1).
Presentation De La Salle: Jake Doyle (1-10; 0-9f), Jack Treacy (2-0), Fiach O’Toole (0-2), Kealan Guidera (0-1), Mark Foley (0-1).