O’Connor late goal secures Emmets U-21s the victory

battle and wrestle the honours in a dramatic tussle.

At the start of the second half, Kanturk trailed by eleven points but rallied magnificently to erase the deficit and jump ahead by a single point. However Emmets wriggled their way out of trouble and capitalised on a break upfield against the run of play for O’Connor to embark on a solo and fend off Kanturk defenders to bat the ball to the net for the winning score.

Little separated the sides in the opening exchanges, three points swopped at either end. Emmets looked better going forward, Michael McSweeney setting up Jack Murphy for a goal.

Kanturk attempted a recovery and answered on points to Liam O’Keeffe and Brian Carver. Still Emmets dominated and owed much to the strong play of Cathal Browne, Michael Cottrell and Conor O’Keeffe with O’Connor and Donal Hannon in fine shooting form.

And Emmets hopes received a significant boost from a goal by O’Connor to forge ahead 2-12 to 0-7 at the break. However on the resumption, Kanturk cranked up their level of performance big time, helped by positional alterations.

Indeed the switches worked a treat, the Walsh brothers, Paul and Ryan along with Darren Browne, Ciarán Boyce and O’Keeffe stormed into the game. Full forward O’Keeffe emerged as a menace after netting a much needed goal.

O’Keeffe followed up on a pair of pointed frees only for Emmets to reply with a much needed Hannon converted free. Still Emmets turned the momentum to good account, Cian Clernon goaled that preceded points by Darren O’Sullivan and O’Keeffe to leave the minimum between the pair.

Emmets got out of their half for a Conor O’Keeffe flag only for Kanturk namesake Liam to pounce on a pair of pointed frees for parity.

Kanturk drove on and a marvellous comeback looked complete after Paul Walsh pointed for a lead.

Game over, not quite, Emmets pulled themselves back from the brink and delivered the match defining score after O’Connor accelerated away from the Kanturk defence and clinically despatched the sliothar to the net for the winner.