St Joseph’s edge out the Fechin’s

3-10 1-14

THE Joes edged past the Fechin’s for the second time in a month to book their place in this year’s Division 1/2 promotion/relegation play-off final.

With the wind at their backs, the home side got off to an excellent start and after 12 minutes were leading 1-4 to no score. Ronan Holcroft, leading the Fechin’s attack, hit 1-2 of that early haul.

The Conall connection got the Joes off the mark, as O’Hanlon set up Smyth for a goal.

A Ben Mulligan point was added shortly after, but the Fechin’s very quickly set about nullifying these scores and hit another five on the bounce, including an excellent back-to-back brace for midfielder Paul Matthews.

A Derek Mulligan point gave brief respite for the visitors, but Holcroft again drove his team forward, hitting a brilliant hat-trick of points in as many minutes to leave his side leading by 10 as the game entered first-half injury time.

This quite possibly might have been an insurmountable gap to bridge for the Joes in the second half, but the fractious nature of the opening half meant that there was plenty of added minutes still to be played.

During that time the Joes hit three quick-fire scores as a Quigley free was followed up by a Jack Mulligan point from the kickout and then the Conal combination struck again, this time Smyth playing a ball across the face of goal for O’Hanlon to palm the ball to the net.

With only five between them again at the break - 1-12 to 2-4 - it was very much a case of game back on.

As he had done in the first half, Ronan Holcroft opened the scoring in the second minute, but this would turn out to be a rare Fechin’s attack in this half as the Joes took over the game.

With another element of symmetry with the opening period it was yet again the Conal combination who struck! On this occasion Smyth set up O’Hanlon, with the latter following this up with an excellent point to reduce the deficit to only two points with still more than 20 minutes left.

A Tomas Smyth point and a brace of Quigley frees and the Joes were actually in front with 22 minutes played.

The Fechin’s eventually sparked into life again at this stage and Philip Kinahan had to put his body on the line to block a goal-bound shot from the home team.

They soon followed this up with another goal chance, and although they didn’t score on that occasion either they did benefit from the Joes losing one of their most influential players as Conall Smyth saw red, after a second yellow card. The resultant close Holcroft level the game.

So it would remain until, with seconds left in normal time, Tomas Smyth turned the ball over in midfield and then was at the end of the move he started to again edge the Joes back in front.

A Quigley point in the 33rd minute would double that lead, but the drama was far from over.

The Fechin’s pushed hard for that crucial goal and it was down to the prowess of Mark Neary in the Joes goal that they did not get it - firstly fielding a magnificent ball on the edge of his goal, before pulling off two great shot stops.

The Joes now go on to face the Clans in the final, with the winner heading up to the top ranks of league football for 2017, while the Fechin’s will be back down to Division 2 for next year. in free would see