O’Shea stars as AGB storm past Kilmac

at Aughrim Healy in place of Cathal Kelleher who appeared to pick up a knock and Stephen Hurley finally restarted the scoreboard after a long drought with a fine score from a free.

This was the score that AGB needed and Hurley got on the ball soon after and he fed O’Shea who walloped over the bar and it was now 2-04 to 0-04.

Kilmac fought back. Simon Doyle carried a serious amount of ball in the game and they were awarded a free in the next move and Josh O’Callaghan stepped up and swung over a badly needed point to reduce the lead to five points.

Chris O’Brien then announced his arrival on the scene by bursting forward and after an exchange with fellow substitute Philip Healy the AGB man fired over and Kilmac were getting into trouble all over the field.

Healy racked up another wide for AGB and Kilmac attacked at the other end but Josh O’Callaghan’s shot was brilliantly blocked by Danny O’Harte.

Kilmac needed a goal you felt at this stage but when they worked the ball into that territory there were always at least two AGB men inside and one of those was always James Tyrrell who put in a serious shift for the AGB men.

And then both teams received a terrible blow with the sending off of Ivan Hurley and Micheal Masterson after an incident close to the sideline.

AGB were not going to be stopped though and when Cormac O’Shea grabbed his second goal of the game to make it 3-05 to 0-06 with five minutes remaining there was only going to be one winner and that winner was the men of AGB who will now run out in Aughrim on Sunday, October 9 to face Ballinacor with the winner securing a place in Senior ranks for the 2017 season.

Scorers – AGB: Cormac O’Shea 2-02; Ross Hynes 1-00; Cathal Kelleher 0-01; Stephen Hurley 0-01 (f); Chris O’Brien 0-01.

Kilmacanogue: Josh O’Callaghan 0-05 (4f); Niall Meldon 0-02.

AGB: Mervyn Travers; Karl Kirwan, James Tyrrell, Tom Maher; Darragh Fitzgerald, Ciaran Hyland, Gary Tyrrell; John Paul Hurley, Cal Kelly; Ross Hynes, Philip Gleeson, Cormac Hyland; Cathal Kelleher, Stephen Hurley, Cormac O’Shea. Subs: Danny O’Harte for JP Hurley; Chris O’Brien for G Tyrrell; Philip Healy for C Kelleher; Tommy Hurley for R Hynes.

Kilmacanogue: Daryl Tighe; Donal Touhy, Bob O’Donnell, Eoin Touhy; Micheal Masterson, Craig O’Neill, Ben O’Callaghan; Cian Rafferty, Gavan Burke; Simon Doyle, Niall Meldon, Stephen Morgan; Andrew Molloy, Rob Conan, Josh O’Callaghan. Subs: Kevin Reddan for C Rafferty; Luke O’Callaghan for D Touhy.

Referee: Garreth Whelan (Kiltegan)