A serious dogfight
Blessington and An Tochar must go again after draw
AN TOCHAR BLESSINGTON 0-8 0-8
BLESSINGTON and An Tochar must meet again to decide the Fitzgerald Kitchens Junior ‘A’ Football Championship for 2019 after there was no separating the sides in a packed Ashford on Saturday afternoon last.
That replay will be not take place for a number of weeks now as the Roundwood side have the small matter of representing Wicklow in the Leinster Junior football championship when they travel to face Westmeath outfit Ballynacargy in Mullingar on Saturday, October 26, given that Blessington are a second team and therefore cannot represent the county.
That the free-flowing and high-scoring Blessington side could only manage eight points in this tense decider is testament to the ferocious work of the An Tochar side who came into this game missing some key players including Conor Davis following their semi-final defeat of Barndarrig.
Blessington will be disappointed with the result but will know that it is unlikely that they will play so unlike themselves and so far away from their capabilities in the replay and they will hope that they get the rub of the green after they somehow conspired to miss several massive goal chances in the second half of this game when majors looked certain while they will also hope that decisions that went against them won’t be a factor in the replay.
An Tochar were boosted massively by the inclusion of Brendan Kennedy in their starting 15 after he had went off injured in the semi-final and he was to go on and have a massive game for the Roundwood men, firing over a screamer in the opening half to give them an early lead at 0-3 to 0-2 and giving their supporters a huge lift.
Their cause was also helped no end by the performance of Stephen Connor on Blessington’s Kevin Quinn. The An tochar number 12 kept the lethal Blessington attacker to just one point from play over the course of the 60 minutes as the Roundwood side frustrated Peter Behan’s side and stopped them playing the fast, free-flowing football they have been tormenting sides with to date.
Shay Cullen’s men enjoyed a dream start in front of a big crowd in Ashford. Eamon Wolohan and Liam Gaffney opened up a 0-2 to 0-0 lead before Kevin Quinn swung over a free won by Sean Mescall to get the Blessington men up and running.
Eoin Devlin equalised from a free after 14 as it became abundantly clear that this was going to be an absolute dogfight given how deep An Tochar were playing as they looked to restrict the Blessington attack before turning over and breaking.
Brendan Kennedy’s bomb pushed An Tochar in front again but Blessington started to stretch their legs.
Mescall with the fist, Eoin Devlin from a free won by Brian Bohan who was pulled back as he looked to be in on goal and another Kevin Quinn free put Blessington 0-5 to 0-3 ahead after 22.
Eoin Higgins and Kevin Quinn either side of a Gavin Fogarty free sent the sides intothe half-time break with Blessington leading 0-7 to 0-4.
The second half was a war. An Tochar drew to within a point thanks to Gavin Fogarty (free) and a sweet Oisin Cullen point but Blessington were conspiring to kick this one away as they dropped balls short, kicked four wides and failed to go for the jugular when the opportunity arose before Kevin Quinn kicked their final score of the game from a free after 15 minutes of the second half.
Gavin Fogarty pointed a free won by Liam Gaffney with 22 gone and he swung over the equaliser at the end of normal time but Blessington must have been wondering if they were cursed as they failed to find the net on two occasions, striking the crossbar with one effort and both posts (in the one shot) while they will feel that they might have been entitled to a few more frees on another day.
‘I’m so proud, a little emotional, I can’t speak,’ was An Tochar manager Shay Cullen’s reaction.
‘We came in today with massive injuries and we really felt for the lads, but to a man everybody stood up to the last minute.
‘We definitely deserved a draw here, but I thought we were getting stronger near the end and possibly could have have went on to win it.
It’s just incredible. I came in here eight weeks ago and these lads were on the ground and we picked them up and we trained hard and you see the character in the lads out there.
‘We’re a really tight group and we never doubted ourselves. Unfortunately, as I said, we are down two or three of our best lads, but to show the character that those lads have shown, that never-saydie attitude, every one of them to a man stood strong and couldn’t be more proud of them.
‘The problem here we felt was that we played three weeks on the trot and we’re facing into a Leinster championship match in two weeks’ time, so I don’t know how this is going to pan out. The way it stands at the moment we won’t be able to play next week, we can’t play five matches in five weeks, it’s just impossible.’ he said.
Blessington boss Peter Behan said that his side didn’t get the rub of the green and that scoring one point in the second half wasn’t like his team.
‘Nail-biting stuff. We didn’t get run of the green there, hit the crossbar, hit the post, how we didn’t get them?
‘But that’s football. Two right teams, we went at it.
‘We only scored one point in the second half which is not like us.
‘Fair play to An Tochar, they had their homework done and they worked hard.
‘Both teams worked very hard out there on a heavy enough pitch. A lot of lads were tired, and I think they were glad there was no extra-time. Both teams gave a hell of a craic at it,’ he said.
Scorers – Blesisngton: Kevin Quinn 0-4 (3f), Eoin Devlin 0-2 (2f), Sean Mescall 0-1, Eoin Higgins 0-1.
An Tochar: Gavin Fogarty 0-4 (3f), Eamon Wolohan 0-1, Liam Gaffney 0-1, Brendan Kennedy 0-1, Oisin Cullen 0-1.
Barry Behan; Eoin Howlin, Conall O Gallchobhair, Bradley Foster; Brian Bohan, James Kearns, Glen Farrell; Eoin Higgins, Craig Maguire; Fionán Leahy, Eoin Devlin, Kevin Quinn; Ciaran Mescall, Sean Byrne, David Behan. Subs: Ethan Cotter, Kevin John Rogers, David Behan, Ciaran Mescall.
BLESSINGTON: AN TOCHAR:
Peter Byrne; Brendan Kennedy, Gavin Kenny, Conor Shortt; Eoin Murphy, Joe Gaffney, Gavin Fogarty; William Halligan, Ger Byrne; Eamon Wolohan, Oisin Cullen, Stephen Connor; Cian McHugh, Enda Kavanagh, Liam Gaffney. Subs: Pat Donohoe, Brendan Awords.
REFEREE:
John Keenan (Aughrim)