St Kieran's College advance to Leinster Junior A Hurling Final

A strong second half performance when favoured by the breeze saw St. Kieran’s comfortably qualify for the Leinster Post Primary Schools Junior ‘A’ Hurling Final when they defeated Good Counsel at the New Ross school’s grounds on Tuesday afternoon.

The first half was close and competitive. Both sides missed a couple of scoring chances early on with the Good Counsel goalie Ryan Sinnott making a great save on five minutes from Sean Hunt. The first score of the game arrived on seven minutes when Kieran’s full- forward Ciallin Brennan collected a long delivery from Tom McPhillips, rounded his marker and shot to the net. Aaron McEvoy immediately added a point from a free, but Good Counsel responded well with the outstanding Eoghan Lyng at centre half back driving his team forward and adding a brace of points from frees.

Defences dominated in the opening half. Sean Roberts and Evan Murphy marshalled a strong Kieran’s rearguard from their central roles. It was similar at the other end of the field with Eoghan Lyng and Ben Keely superb for the home side.

By the twentieth minute the teams were level after midfielder Paul Walsh pointed for Good Counsel. The home side, however, added just one more point before the interval from an Eoghan Lyng free, whereas Kieran’s started to make better use of their possession scoring points from frees from Jeff Neary and Aaron McEvoy and a brace from play from Ciallin Brennan and Ben Phelan.

Defences again dominated during the opening ten minutes of the second half, but the pendulum swung firmly in favour of Kieran’s when Aaron McEvoy caught a long free from Jeff Neary and rounded his marker to score his side’s second goal.

A third Kieran’s goal arrived eight minutes later when Tom McPhillips collected a Jeff Neary delivery, and his well-delivered cross was tapped to the net by Ciallin Brennan.

Good Counsel, despite enjoying plenty of possession in attack, struggled for scores as the winner’s defence took charge. Such was the Kieran’s dominance in the closing quarter that they grew the margin between the sides with every passing minute.

Jeff Neary scored a fourth Kieran’s goal five minutes from the end of normal time after he collected a pass from club colleague Aaron McEvoy.

Tom O’Callaghan, Niall Mooney and Conor Power worked hard to get their team back into the game, but the result was well decided before the hard-working duo of Ben Phelan and Sean Hunt added further points to secure a comfortable win for Kieran’s who now await the winners of the second semi-final between Kilkenny CBS and St. Peter’s College.

Teams and Scorers

St. Kieran’s- Ciallin Brennan (2-2); Aaron McEvoy (1-3, 0-2 frees); Jeff Neary (1-1, 0-1 free); Ben Phelan & Sean Hunt (0-3 each) & Tomás Roche (0-1).

Good Counsel- Eoghan Lyng (0-5, 0-3 frees & 0-1 ’65); Tom O’Callaghan (0-2, 0-1 free), Paul Walsh (0-1) & Conor Power (0-1 free).

St. Kieran’s- Stephen Manogue; Conor Brophy; Sean Roberts; Bobby Murphy; Tim Kelly; Evan Murphy; Rory Connellan; Jeff Neary; Tom McPhillips; Ben Phelan; Ed McDermott; Tomás Roche; Aaron McEvoy; Ciallin Brennan; Sean Hunt.

Subs – Oisín Bateman; Ed Lauhoff; Cathal Hickey & Conor Doyle.

Good Counsel- Ryan Sinnott; Eoin Dempsey; Ben Keely; Jack Dollard; Alex Power; Eoghan Lyng; Darragh Vereker; Steven Walsh; Paul Walsh; Marty Murphy; Niall Mooney; Niall Kehoe; Tom O’Callaghan; Cian Carty; Conor Power.

Subs – Con Mernagh.

Referee – Stephen Burke (Wexford).