THE MIGHTY VILLAGE
RATHNEW BLESSINGTON 3-08 0-12
ALL the positive characteristics you associate with the Rathnew Senior footballers were present in abundance in Joule Park, Aughrim, last Sunday afternoon as they claimed their 34th Senior crown by defeating the men of Blessington in a classic game of two halves.
Passion, energy, lethal efficiency in front of goal, and the ruthless punishing of errors were the traits which allowed them build a 3-04 to 0-04 lead after 23 minutes of this encounter in front of a very decent crowd at the county grounds on a damp and dreary October day.
And then it was the turn of bravery, experience, hunger, desire and total and utter self-belief that took the Village side from a vulnerable looking two-point advantage in the 54th minute to their fully deserved five-point victory at the shrill sounding of Declan Peppard’s full-time whistle.
The phrase ‘goals win matches’ must have been said hundreds of times on Sunday afternoon and, as cliched as that term might be, it does provide some insight into the returning of Miley to Rathnew after a brief adventure over in the west.
A porous Blessington defence conceded the 3-04 with the middle channel of the field looking gapingly open at times as the Rathnew players powered through.
The game was seven minutes old when Mark Doyle found the back of Stephen Kitt’s net but the panic button should have been pressed moments earlier when the full-forward got on the end of a Leighton Glynn pass and punched over when a tap in seemed the likely outcome.
Doyle’s goal opened up a 1-03 to 0-01 lead with visions of a rout not looking too outlandish even at this early stage.
Blessington had opened superbly with an excellent opening score from Patrick O’Connor after Curtis Geraghty had stormed out to claim a ball and handed off to the corner-forward who dropped over with aplomb.
Rathnew, stirred by this impu- dence, came roaring into the game with points from Theo Smith, Mark Doyle and Edward Doyle with Leighton Glynn popping up all over the place as Barry Murphy struggled to get to grips with the dual star who played a role of some kind in every Rathnew score up to then.
A Jody Merrigan 45 was followed by the second hammer blow to Barry O’Donovan’s men’s hopes of ending the famine. Stephen Kitt attempted a short kickout to Stephen Bohan but the full-back couldn’t gather in the slippery conditions and in came Glynn to pounce like a vulture and there’s only one place that ball is going and that’s straight to the back of the Blessington net like a great big arrow into the already bloodied heart of the Blessington dream.
Blessington needed something quick, anything, and they steadied the ship with patient build up to Curtis Geraghty who calmed things ever so slightly with a point to make it 2-04 to 0-02 after 12.
The next 10 minutes were much improved from Blessington but they made the criminal error of dropping balls into the manly chest of Rathnew goalkeeper Peter Dignam on more than one occasion (five in total over the course of the game). They also registered a wide from Mick McLoughlin but only after he had raised a white flag a moment earlier with a left-footed strike from 30 yards to cut the lead to seven points.
But disaster was soon to strike for Blessington. A Graham Merrigan sideline ball was collected by Nicky Mernagh who found James Stafford rampaging through a savannah of open space up the middle of the Blessington heartland and is there anyone better at taking those goals than the Rathnew midfielder? Highly unlikely. Goal. 3-04 to 0-03 and every doubt and every criticism ever levelled at Blessington for the last 28 years seemed to make complete sense under the chokingly heavy grey skies at Joule Park, Aughrim.
But, as Leighton Glynn noted in his post-match speech, the ‘bottlers’ tag dished out to Blessington over the years is “a load of crap”. Plenty of teams would have thrown in the towel in the face of this devastating Rathnew blitz. Blessington kept their heads.
Points from Eoin Keogh and Brian Carroll took the brutal look off the scoreboard and left the halftime score at 3-04 to 0-05 in favour of the flying Villagers.
The Blessington management team, minus Barry O’Donovan who didn’t return home from Australia for this game, remanined in deep discussion until well into the halftime break and Rathnew were out on the field for a number of minutes before the Blues returned to a hearty roar from their plentiful support.
Paddy O’Connor had sent in David Boothman for Michael Nugent after 27 minutes of the opening half and he deployed Gavin Murray into the middle of the field at the expense of corner-back Declan Fennessy after the break.
What followed was an epic change of domination. Blessington were now playing towards the Rednagh Hill end and against a strong breeze but they launched a savage offensive against Rathnew who would go from the 23rd minute to the 56th minute without a score.
Blessington began their clawing back of the significant lead - given the conditions - with a fine point from Eoin Keogh.
`A quality pass from Curtis Geraghty set up Patrick O’Connor and he split the posts and the Blessington belief started to emerge from its fragile cocoon.
O’Connor registered Blessing-