Battling Kilmore best
Game Clongeen gave everything they had
KILMORE BATTLED their way to glory
Intermediate ladies’ football championship final against a game Clongeen side in Farmleigh on Sat-
ithout the talismanic Maria Byrne, seasiders needed someone to step take the game by the scruff of neck and they got that performance another of their county stars, Moore. Undoubtedly Moore had plenty of Lauren Cousins was excellent, Hore filled in for Byrne and was unfazed by everything Clongeen threw way, and all three substitutions telling impact. However, it was Moore, who when was younger could sometimes get the pressure of being Kilmore’s hope, who took the game to Clongeen. She was the creator, the destructor and even the scorer on occasions - she simply made her tick.
Claire Barry opened the scoring in the second minute but Chloe Foxe quickly countered at the other end.
The experienced Linda Casey kicked her side ahead but the game was level again when Moore popped over her opening free.
Not that everything was going her way. When the Kilmore captain slalomed through the Clongeen defence and went down when rounding the last covering defender, she was questionably blown for charging.
She was soon whistled for over-carrying with her marker holding a handful of jersey from step two.
But frustration wasn’t going to set in and, after Karen Rochford and Aoife Cousins exchanged points, Moore and Claire Barry created a point which Johanna Cousins took with aplomb.
When Moore and Foxe exchanged frees, Kilmore held a slender 0-5 to 0-4 interval lead.
It lasted just seconds after the change of ends as Foxe flighted over her third and final score of the afternoon.
Good work by Emma Cousins allowed Moore to kick her side back ahead and it was the captain’s free that Lauren Cousins hauled in and dispatched to the Clongeen net to make it 1-6 to 0-5 in the 36th minute.
It felt like all the close calls were going the ‘Geeners way until Foxe was sin-binned for charging in the 41st minute.
Yet the softest of penalties got them back in the game two minutes later, dispatched by Tracy Sinnott.
Kilmore did do some damage with the numerical advantage. Aoife Cousins popped over the bar to see her side 1-7 to 1-5 ahead at the end of the third quarter.
She them clinically netted from Moore’s pass after a tuned-in Lauren Cousins got her side moving with a quickly-taken free.
Points from Moore and Lisa Power made the advantage 2-9 to 1-5 with seven minutes left.
There was little doubt about the foul and yellow Kelsea Morris collected for taking down Foxe four minutes from time, and Sinnott dispatched her second penalty to put four in it.
Amy Eustace floated her side within a kick of the ball three minutes into added-time but Kilmore funneled numbers back in front of their own goal and defended for the last two minutes without giving Clongeen a sniff to take a hard-earned but well-deserved Intermediate crown.
Kilmore: Kate O’Reilly; Cathy O’Connor, Emma Hore, Kelsea Morris; Beth Malone, Sharon Cloney, Nicole Kelly; Lauren Cousins (1-0), Orla Fortune; Emma Cousins, Niamh Moore (capt., 0-4, 3 frees), Claire Barry (0-1); Ellie O’Connor, Aoife Cousins (1-2), Johanna Cousins (0-1). Subs. - Ciara Codd for Barry (40), Lisa Power (0-1) for J. Cousins (46), Sophie Boxwell for Fortune (51), also Maria Byrne, Imogen Fanning, Johanne Walsh, Amy Cousins, Olivia McDonnell, Molly Bates, Katie Martin, Katrina Parrock, Rebecca Furlong, Haley Millar, Grace Barry, Ellen Berry, Gráinne Power, Emily Bates, Mary Anne Sheehan.
Clongeen: Fleur Moran; Ciara Mythen, Marcia Sinnott, Trina Sinnott; Stephanie Foxe, Sarah Eustace (joint capt.), Hazel Redmond; Laura Redmond, Linda Casey (joint capt., 0-1); Tracy Sinnott (2-0 pens.), Chloe Foxe (0-3, 1 free), Sarah Farrell; Eva Murphy, Karen Rochford (0-1), Emer Cahill. Subs. - Amy Eustace (0-1) for Rochford (31), Denise Wall for Farrell (31), Sarah Murphy for Redmond (55), Shendah Moran for Tracy Sinnott (60), Caroline Butler-Hallissey for Casey (60+2), also Sinéad Whelan, Aine Breen, Charlotte O’Farrell, Joanne Murphy.
Referee: Brendan Holohan (Rathgarogue-Cushinstown).