Champs bite back at upstart St Brendans

Kilmoyley 1-13 St Brendans 0-15

FINALLY. This was it. This was what we were looking for all season.

A blood and thunder championship match to raise to the roof, to lift the gloom from a championship that far too often had left us counting down the seconds remaining, hoping the referee would just blow the thing up.

The first game of this double header fell into that category. Abbeydorney didn’t show up and, by the time the second half rolled around, there was this most heavy sense of going through the motions. The referee couldn’t put us out of our collective misery fast enough.

The second match was night and day different. We weren’t so much urging the referee to blow it up as hoping against hope he’d keep it going. Everybody that is, except for the Kilmoyley faithful.

At two points up with the game into time added on they were, understandably, quite happy when the referee finally blew up after three additional minutes. St Brendans had their chances to level it up, before and after an inspirational Adrian Royle effort seemed to wrap matters up on sixty minutes, but they failed to take advantage.

The Saints overplayed, they took an extra couple of steps closer to goal, attempted another pass, when really they should have taken on the shot. It felt as though they were going for goal and doing so far too early in the contest.

With five minutes to go there was just a single score in it. What was needed was calm heads. Instead, as we’ve said, St Brendans tried to force it a little too much. At the other end Kilmoyley didn’t make the same mistake.

In the last ten minutes, when they were considerably under the cosh, they fashioned only a handful of scoring chances and took most of them. Kilmoyley’s overall shot efficiency was nothing much to write home about at 56% – St Brendans’ was marginally better at 60% – but when it counted they delivered.

The same could be said of Kilmoyley’s performance writ large. They didn’t panic after a disappointing first half. Their management team didn’t panic either, they simply tweaked a few things here and there and got back down to business.

Tom Murnane moved from being an ineffective centre-forward to a totemic centre-back. Jordan Brick dropped from corner to wing-forward and got on an amount of ball. Adrian Royle was introduced after twenty minutes and went on to provide a much needed focal point to the Kilmoyley attack in the second half.

More importantly than any of that, however, was the way Kilmoyley upped the work-rate, upped the intensity. Nowhere was this better seen than at midfield. In the first half Stephen Leen and David Griffin were well in control of that sector for St Brendans, in the second they were nowhere near as prominent.

St Brendans were visibly taken aback by this turn of fortunes, for they had dominated the first half. They had four points on the board – all courtesy of John Egan – before Kilmoyley got up and running after thirteen minutes with a point by Sean Maunsell.

The St Brendans defence looked watertight, conceding only eight scoring opportunities to Kilmoyley in the half and, yet, for all that John Mortell’s men failed to strike when the iron was hot, failed to kill off Kilmoyley when they had the chance.

St Brendans created eleven more scoring opportunities than their parish rivals in the first half, but only held a six point lead at the break – 0-10 to 0-4. Six points is nothing to be sniffed at certainly, it just could have and should have been better.

It needed to be as events would shortly make clear. The first warning signs for St Brendans were two hugely inspirational points by Jordan Brick and Seán Nolan. Brick from the stand side and Nolan from the railway.

Beautiful points from tricky angles and difficult distances they erased any nerves their colleagues may have had, they gave them belief, they gave them that most illusive of all commodities – momentum. Between the thirty fourth and forty third minutes Kilmoyley scored 1-5 without reply and turned a seven point deficit into a one point lead. For the goal Daniel Collins claimed a long distance free high, turned and found for himself the only available route to goal and took it with a beautiful strike past Darren Delaney.

St Brendans, to give them their dues, responded well enough with a point to level it up by the ever impressive Kevin Skinner, following a lovely little one-two with Cian Hussey, but Kilmoyley’s dominance remained in tact.

Two further points on the forty seventh and forty eighth minutes by Daniel Collins – a free – and Maurice O’Connor pushed them back into a lead they would never again relinquish.

Three times before the end, St Brendans managed to reduce the margin to one. On two of those occasions Kilmoyley had an answer – to John Egan’s free on fifty four minutes Paudie O’Connor responded, to Fionán Mackessy’s point on fifty five minutes, Royle did the needful – and for the third the full-time whistle was their salvation following Egan’s late free.

It must be the bitterest of pills for St Brendans to swallow. Despite their dominance of the first half they fell short. Despite their impressive rally they fell short. Despite starting this championship like a house on fire they fell short.

They probably deserved a draw from this game. Kilmoyley probably would, not unreasonably, argue that deserved ain’t got nothing to do with it. Not for the first time the Naomh Pairc Eric outfit showed the championship pedigree which boils down to one simple fact: they know how to win. It’s no coincidence when they do. KILMOYLEY: Aiden McCabe (0-1f), Seánie Murnane, Colman Savage, Seán Nolan (0-1), Seán Dowling, Dougie Fitzell, John Paul O’Mahony, Paudie O’Connor (0-1), James Godley, Seán Maunsell (0-2), Tom Murnane, Daniel Collins (1-4, 4f), Jordan Brick (0-1), Maurice O’Connor (0-1), Joseph McElligott (0-1) Subs: Adrian Royle (0-1) for JP O’Mahony, 20, Robert Collins for S Murnane, half-time, Micheál O’Regan for J McElligott, 52, Luke Fitzell for M O’Connor, 60

ST BRENDANS: Darren Delaney, Fionán Horgan, Rory Horgan, Conor Flaherty, Eamon Corridan, Darren Dineen, Kevin Orpen, Stephen Leen, David Griffin (0-1), Tim Hannafin, Darren Wallace (0-1), Kevin Skinner (0-3), Cian Hussey, Jerry Wallace, John Egan (0-9, 7f) Subs: Eric Leen for D Wallace, 44, Fionán Mackessy (0-1) for J Wallace, 45

REFEREE: Damian Fox (Clare)