Byrne stunner helps fire Milltown into Leinster Junior Championship final

Milltown 1-16

Kilbeggan Shamrocks 2-6

Milltown powered their way into a Leinster Junior final with an incredibly impressive showing against Westmeath’s Kilbeggan Shamrocks.

Darren O’Shea’s men gave perhaps their best performance of 2023 in their biggest game of the year and that can only be lauded as they kept their dangerous opposition largely at bay.

After a bright start from the Kildare side, with two points early on from Ben Curran and Conor Sheerin, they were hit with an early sucker punch.

Kilbeggan would get their first score of the game when Nigel Scally drove at his opposite number before cutting inside and curling the ball over the bar.

At the 10-minute mark, Kilbeggan would fire themselves in front, in what would be shown to be a rare moment of Milltown defensive fragility. Darragh Coffey drove forward and found an incisive handpass to David Fennell who finished smartly past the advancing Milltown ‘keeper to make it 1-1 to 0-3.

The Milltown reaction to the concession had an air of making sure a goal of that nature was not going to happen again in this game as the ferocity of their defending increased tenfold.

They would react on the scoreboard too as the men who got the sides opening two points went back-to-back again as Ben Curran and Conor Sheerin knocked over a couple of fine points to restore their lead.

A Patrick Donohoe free-kick put Milltown two clear with five minutes remaining on the first-half clock. However, the closing minutes of the first would be perhaps the Westmeath team’s best spell in this game. 

The sides went in all square after Kilbeggan Shamrocks registered points from Paul Fennell and captain Nigel Scally just before the break, leaving the game at 0-6 to 1-3 at half-time.

Nobody bar the members of that team are privy to the half-time team talk, so one can only speculate that it must be a rousing event given how Milltown came flying out of the blocks, perhaps one in the plus column for the argument of having a club man in your dugout. 

Milltown, once again, started the second half on fire and with intent, much like they did in the last round. After an unsuccessful attempt to replicate their throw-in routine that ends with a Colin O’Shea shot on goal, the Kildare men would carve out an even better chance.

Captain Cian Buckley was up from full-back and offloaded the ball to Kevin Byrne who without attempting to oversimplify his thoughts looked like he just decided he was going to score a goal. Byrne got his head down and bore a hole in the Kilbeggan backline before unleashing a vicious and unstoppable effort into the roof of the net. 

The raising of the green flag made it 1-6 to 1-3 after just two minutes of the second half.

Milltown had a decent stranglehold on this game for the following minutes as they extended their lead to four points with scores from Declan McKenna and a Patrick Donohoe free, with one point going the other way.

That Kilbeggan point would be the last before the commencing of the Patrick Donohoe show. After a mixed afternoon against Kibride, Donohoe had scored all his frees in this game. But for the second half he extended that 100% record to shots from play as everything Donohoe hit seemed to sail between the posts.

The corner-forward got the ball, cut inside and curled a superb score over the bar. Rinse. Repeat. 

In particular, his three points scored in five minutes, at such a crucial point in the game (midway through the second half) was the winning of this match as the Kildare Junior Champions kicked themselves out of sight.

The game for Milltown now became to not do anything silly and after a few unwise attempts at getting another goal, Declan McKenna showed his teammates what was needed as he coolly took a close range point to extend their lead to 1-12 to 1-5 with 10 minutes to go.

There would be no further jeopardy for Milltown as they simply extended their lead further, adding points from Aaron Jacob and Ronan O’Shea.

O’Shea, who had covered every blade of grass and was wearing a lot of the pitch on his jersey and shorts, somehow mustered the energy to get a point on the board too. OShea gave a tireless and I’m sure thoroughly appreciated performance by the winning dressing room.

Kilbeggan would raise their second green flag of the game three minutes into injury time through Conor Delaney whose goal achieved no more than reducing the margin of defeat.

Milltown, deservedly, march on to a Leinster Club Junior Football Championship final against Louth's Glyde Rangers.

Scorers: Milltown, Patrick Donohoe 0-7 (0-3 frees), Kevin Byrne 1-0, Conor Sheerin 0-2 (0-1 frees), Ben Curran 0-2, Declan McKenna 0-2, Ronan O'Shea 0-1, Aaron Jacob 0-1, Ronan O'Shea 0-1.

Kilbeggan Shamrocks, Paul Fennell 1-1 (0-1 frees), David Fennell 1-0, Nigel Scally 0-2, Conor Delaney 0-2 (0-2 frees), Darragh Coffey 0-1.

MILLTOWN: Alan Dignam; Jamie Cross, Cian Buckley, Sean Murphy; Aaron Jacob, Colin O'Shea, Shane Daly; Kevin Byrne, Conor Sheerin; Karl Heuston, Hugh Hamilton, Ben Curran, Declan McKenna. Subs: Calum Murphy for Karl Heuston (38 minutes), Ben Heuston for Declan McKenna (54 minutes), Karl Downey for Kevin Byrne (59 minutes), Aaron Walker for Sean Murphy (59 minutes).

KILBEGGAN: Joey O'Neill; Sean Hanlon, James Fox, Martin Ward; Conor Carrol, Aidan Stone, Mark Wrafter; Darragh Coffey, Brendan McMahon; Paul Fennell, Shaun Pidgeon, Michael Coffey; David Fennell, Conor Delaney, Nigel Scally. Subs: Colin Draper for Sean Hanlon (14 minutes), Dean Fitzgerald for Brendan McMahon (46 minutes), Danny Scully for Michael Coffey (48 minutes).

Referee: Dan Stynes (Dublin)