November 5th 2010
Danesfort
St. Canices 3-7 Ballyhale 2-5

Football Final Again

We qualified for the Roinn A football final again after this fine victory over a game Ballyhale side in “field of dreams” Danesfort today. On a mild wet evening, we repeated our win of last year over the same opposition at the same stage in the same venue, but this year’s encounter was a much closer affair. Incidentally, our opponents in the final will be the same as last year also, and hopefully with the same result!
We started slowly enough today, and it was only after a fortuitous lob from Harry Duggan’s left foot landed in the net that we began to play with some confidence. When Shane McGeary followed with a pointed free, and Conor Heary scored the first of his two goals, we were now playing very well. We added two more good scores from Peter Collins and Adam Cummins before half time, when we led 2-3 to 0-0.
With the aid of the hill in the second half, the Ballyhale boys played much better. They added 5 good points while we scored 3 from Harry(free), Peter Collins and Shane (free). While we held a good lead, the challenges were now very competitive. Another score from Ballyhale would have put the pressure on us, but our backs were outstanding. It would be really impossible to pick out any one of them as having played well…..each one played really superbly. Well done! And Cian Lyng was extremely sound in goal.
The game was effectively ended with a fantastic goal from Conor Heary when his shot from a narrow angle found the top of the net with 7 minutes to go.
Our forwards were on song today. We played some beautiful football today in conditions that were not best suited. Indeed at times we may have overdone the passes, and at other times we made poor decisions when in possession. However, overall we can be happy with today.
We now look forward to the final. C.B.S. have been unbeaten all year and they beat us comprehensively in our league outing earlier in the year.
 Here is a summary of that game:
In our more recent outing against C.B.S. in Palmerstown, we came out second best, losing 5-7 to 0-5. This was our first real competitive match and we were definitely not “match ready”. We trailed at half time 2-1 to 0-4, unlucky to concede a goal right on the stroke of half time. The opposition went on to be more dominant in the second half with the aid of the wind and ran out deserving winners in the end. This result puts pressure on us now, as we cannot afford to lose another game. We have tough matches against St. Pats and Thomastown coming up.

This is a repeat of last year’s final and C.B.S. will be very determined to gain revenge and stop our run of successes in this competition. However, we are very happy to have a chance to prove that our league match was really a case of us not being “match ready”. There will be no excuses in the final…the better team will win.

Cian Lyng
Eoghan Moylan Peter Henebry David Ryan
Sean Boyd Johnny Manogue Liam Brennan
Harry Duggan (1-1)Shane McGeary(0-2F)
Conor Heary(2-0) Joe Sheehan (0-1)Adam Cummins(0-1)
Mark Nolan      Peter Collins(0-2) Kevin Power

L Stynes M Power C Timmons L McEnroe G Byrne C McAuliffe  R Duggan B Smith J Collins
E Clarke B Cuddihy C Madden B Cleere J Treacy