All
Ireland Club Quarter Final 2002
So
close for London Champs.
By
Sean Flynn (Irish World)
St Brendan's
1-7 Crossmolina 1-11
On
the Feast of the Immaculate Conception – a
day traditionally reserved by country people
all over Ireland for their major Christmas
shopping excursions – St Brendan's put paid
to any sneering suggestions that the
Crossmolina boys would have put the tie to
sleep and be off down Oxford Street to buy the
Christmas presents by half-time.
There
had been some suggestion that Crossmolina were
not firing on all cylinders – a proposition
supported by Crossmolina manager John Maughan:
“I don’t think we played at our best
today, but we did enough, we weren’t here to
capture headlines,” he said.
Heart
certainly wasn’t lacking in this Brendan's
side who contested every breaking ball with
with a well-judged physicality that never let
the game degenerate.
Conditions
in Ruislip were hardly ideal; the icy wind
running through the ground had more than a
whiff of Siberia about it and while the pitch
was in good shape for the time of year, it had
a heaviness that suggested a long and busy
season.
The
home side opened scoring and it quickly became
apparent that the men from Connacht had a
fight on their hands. Brendan's’
well-practiced game of short hand passes and
strong confident running onto the ball
suggested that their fitness and intuition
might just carry the day.
Crossmolina’s
not-so-secret weapon, ‘The Blonde Bomber’
Kieran McDonald opened the Mayo men’s
account shortly after that. There were missed
goal opportunities aplenty in this contest and
for a while it seemed that all Brendan's
needed on a couple of occasions was for Meath
man Eric O’Reilly to weave his way through
with a ball that had floated over the heads of
the Crossmolina backs and into his grasp. It
was not to be however.
The
scores remained at 0-2 apiece until the end of
the first quarter when Michael Moyles –
who’d had an earlier shot competently
stopped by Brendan's’ keeper Billy Molloy–
found the back of the net with a cannoning
shot from a steep angle that found the corner
after slamming in off the crossbar, there was
nothing the Wexford man between the sticks
could do to stop it.
This,
according to the script is where Brendan's
should have hung their heads and caved in as
Crossmolina put on the style. Thankfully
however, Brendan's weren’t reading the
script and they dug deep.
A
pair of points from Martin Gill and Eric
O’Reilly gave the Londoners heart and just
when it looked like they were going in with a
deficit, Eric O’Reilly sent surging Martin
Gill through and the Mayo man made no mistake.
The sides went in level at the interval.
Kieran
McDonald had, for much of the game, found it
difficult to pull away from his tenacious
marker and well-deserved man-of-the-match
Fergal Greenan but the Crossmolina man has
class and swagger in abundance and his last
score was to prove the insurance point that
meant even a goal wouldn’t be enough for the
Brendan's. Scores started to flow late half
way through the final quarter and while we
don’t want to dwell on what-ifs, it can’t
hurt to imagine how different it might have
been if the supremely fit Brendan's had had
another few minutes on the pitch with their
rivals.
St
Brendan's:
B
Molloy Wexford, J McNabb Tyrone,
G Cullen Wicklow, S Murphy Dublin,
K Duffy Fermanagh, F Greenan Monaghan,
J Cafferkey Mayo, K McCarthy Cork,
J Carmody Limerick, B Solan
(0-2) Mayo, S Manley Offaly,
M Gill (1-1) Mayo, B Bolger Kilkenny,
E O’Reilly (0-1) Meath, N
Barry (0-1) Louth.
Subs:
L O’Connell (0-2) Cork for
Solan, C Byrne Carlow for McNabb
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