11.07.17. St Margarets. JFC Championship S/final.

Lucan Sarsfields 1-19 v 1-7 St Margarets

NCunningham. SKeher. CHickey. SCasey. AKirwan. AMcCormack. PSloan(0-2). TBradley(0-1). MMoran(0-1). PCarroll. AParsons(0-2). NMcKiernan(0-2). GHamilton. JDoyle(0-8). CTorsney(1-2).

Subs. FMcGrath. BCreed(0-1). GHealy. AO’Neill. GCarabini. GFay. DKealy. SCollins.

A fine summer’s evening at the airport, matched with some fine summer football from Lucan. It was like strawberries & cream. Keelings, not Wimbledon. This match was over by half time as Lucan eased into the County Final. St Margaret’s struggled to get out of their half for most of the 1st half, and their heads were dropping from early on.

A substantial Lucan support enjoyed champagne football for 30 mins, and then for the 2nd Act, there were a few sideshows, plus the football.

·         Margaret’s midfielder did well to keep a ball inside the side line, and as he took off up the field, although the ball was in the field of play, he was not. He just didn’t see the flag, and as it snapped out of the ground, he was lucky not to impale himself.

·         Shortly after that, Margaret’s wing back, made a run up the same side line. He might have gone much further, only the elastic in his pants was obviously overstretched and as his pants slipped towards his knees, he had little choice only to get rid of the ball.

·         An attempted block on another Lucan attack, saw Margaret’s No 6, miss his target and career out, over the same touch line. He might well have been seriously injured had he crashed into the steel railings round the pitch. Fortunately one of the Lucan management bravely threw themselves into the path of the oncoming human cannon, and the good people of Lucan were spared the blood and gore, that would undoubtedly have resulted. The centre back said afterwards that he would have been better off hitting the railings…..”couldn’t have hurt any more”! Some or all of the above might well be “fake news”.

Entertaining as the side shows may have been, the football  was the real show. Lucan reeled off 5 unanswered points by the 10th min. Alan Parsons, a hat trick from John Doyle, and a Mark Moran special. That means he kicked it. Margarets pulled 2 pts back, but 2 quick fire scores from Niall McKiernan, another Doyler point, and then to close out the 1st quarter, Gareth Hamilton slipped a ball to Nids, and as he drew the defence, a perfectly weighted pass, left Cian Torsney, to sidestep his man, and leave the keeper no chance. The 2nd quarter was like a repeat of the 1st. Margaret’s keeper had a decent kick out, and this was an area where there was always competition. Clean possession may have been hard won, but Lucan definitely had the edge on picking up the breaks. Returning from injury, Mark Moran gave no quarter to his opposite number, and from the ensuing breaks Tim Bradley, and Peter Carroll, were the funnel for much of the ball going into the forwards. Mark tired in the 2nd half, and with perhaps too many options, he defaulted to the usually dependable punched point, not trusting the boot a second time!! Wide said the umpire. Should’ve kicked it!

Lucan had a very strong bench, and each of the lads did their level best to improve matters when they got on. A raft of substitutions always causes a match to become more ragged, and so it was on this occasion, but that was happening before any subs had joined the fray. There will be much to play for, in training and league matches, to see who has first call on jerseys for the Final.

Niall Cunningham had a very solid day between the sticks. Kick outs went well, and twice he made himself very big to beat out goal attempts. His new hair cut will help him to go faster……although, it will be soon enough that he won’t have any hair, so I would recommend not to be cutting it too short! The defence were a fortress. Andy Kirwan, Alan McCormack & Paul Sloan squeezed every Margaret’s attack. Time and again, one of them seemed to be on hand, covering back to pick off a pass; and when Margaret’s tried to bypass them, Seamus Keher, Colm Hickey & Shane Casey were every forwards worst nightmare. No doubts that some Margaret’s players will not have slept so well last night. Captain Shane had said before that when we play as a team Margaret’s would not be able to live with that standard……and so it was. Amen.

Paul McGann

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