Blessington drive through to the Senior semi-finals
BLESSINGTON AVONDALE 2-17 0-08
AVONDALE met Baltinglass in the Senior football championship quarter-final last Saturday afternoon and from the off this looked like a game that would be a bit of a mismatch.
Avondale started at a lightning pace, and inside 20 seconds Conor McGraynor had picked out Conor Byrne who feinted a shot with his left before slotting over with his right.
Sean McGraynor was introduced off the bench inside the first few minutes when Dean Gahan, who had his knee heavily strapped and appeared to be limping from the get-go, was forced off.
Ryan Cahill was causing serious problems for the Blessington fullback line with his lightning pace, and Avondale should have had a goal early on when Cahill turned his man with a wonderful step inside and popped the ball off to Cian O’Hannain who saw his shot well saved by Stephen Kitt in the Blessington goal.
Within a matter of moments, O’Hannain had the goal at his mercy again after great work by David Baker but once again Kitt was equal to the task.
Avondale were not disheartened, and two truly majestic scores from Conor McGraynor from distance followed by another Conor Byrne special gave Avondale a four-point lead inside seven minutes.
At this stage, the game was all one way traffic. The sun was shining and Avondale were playing beautiful football. But a game of football lasts for longer than 10 minutes and the weather is not always quite so fair.
Slowly but surely, Blessington began to work their way back into the game. Tackles were going in harder, the intensity was turned up a notch and balls that had been going astray were now finding their man.
A Mikey O’Connor free opened the scoring for Blessington and this was swiftly followed up by a Michael Nugent point. Avondale were having to work that bit harder for scores of their own and midway through the first half the score was 0-07 to 0-04.
A large part of the reason Avondale had maintained the lead was Barry Sheehan’s excellent work around the field. The midfield giant was having a superb game, picking up loose balls in defence and dominating the aerial battle.
Great players know their limits and play to their strengths and Sheehan was excelling under the high ball as well as providing an outlet for his team-mates in midfield.
However, Sheehan was helpless to stop the Blessington fightback. Blessington tore forward from a kick-out, finding acres of space and a four on three situation inside the Avondale 45. At one stage it looked as though the attackers had played one pass too many but the ball made its way to Curtis Geraghty who made half a yard of space for himself before firing a shot low and hard into the net at the near post. This left Blessington in the lead at half-time and they never looked back.
In truth, the game was over as a contest midway through the second half. Blessington took complete and utter control of the game, dominating the Avondale kick-out.
Avondale brought Ryan Cahill out the field, moving Conor McGraynor in to full-forward, in an attempt to spark some life into their play out the field but with little success. Blessington were superb in the second half and this dominance reared its head when Geraghty found the net once again ten minutes after the throw-in.
A poor pass out from the Avondale defence was cut out by Michael Nugent who jinked past one man before squaring the ball to Geraghty who found the roof of the net with a powerful shot.
Blessington won the second half by 14 points. There were impressive cameos from Eoin Keogh and Eddie Boylan and Barry Murphy was impressive as ever after a difficult start, breaking up the field on multiple occasions to add pace to the Blessington attacks.
Blessington will face a much sterner test in the semi-final where they will meet St. Pat’s.
Avondale: Brian Burke; Simon Cullen, Shane Byrne, Shane Beevor; Eamonn Kearns, Eugene Dunne, Eoin Baker; Barry Sheehan, Ian McDonald; Dean Gahan, Conor McGraynor (0-03), David Baker; Cian O’ Hannain, Ryan Cahill, Conor Byrne (0-04). Subs: Sean McGraynor (0-01)
Blessington: Stephen Kitt; Barry Murphy, Michael McLoughlin, Stephen Bohan; Kevin Hanlon, Caolan McGorman, Barry Finan (0-01); Paul McLoughlin (0-01), Gavin Murray; Kevin Rogers (0-01), Bryan Carroll (0-02), Anthony McLoughlin (0-01); Michael Nugent (0-02), Curtis Geraghty (2-03), Mikey O’Connor (0-03). Subs: Eoin Keogh (0-01), Eddie Boylan (002), Jack Gilligan.
Ref: Anthony Nolan (Baltinglass)