Palatine are moving very nicely indeed so far.
Carlow SFC, Group 2, Round 2
Palatine 1-9
Eire Og 0-11
By Jamie Wall
As the sun began to set in Netwatch Cullen Park, Eire Og and Palatine emerged from the outside pitch after their respective warmups, the crowd gathered in anticipation of the battle between the 2022 and 2023 winners of the Michael Lyng Motors Senior Football Championship.
Palatine got out of the blocks first and Tomas Kenny fired over a left footed effort after just 2 minutes. Eire Og lost Kyle O’Byrne to injury after just 3 minutes when he seemed to pick up a knock to the eye in the throw in.
The next score didn’t come for another 9 minutes but this was far from a non-entertaining spectacle with it being end to end, hard and fair hits going in and then you take the crowd into consideration with every turnover and score getting a roar.
It was the trusty left boot of Shane O’Neill that fired the men in white with a green sash 2 points up. Ross Dunphy takes his mark to get Eire Og on scoreboard and Lee Moore backed it up within the minute with another point for the men in red to level the game.
The short kickout can be risk and reward and Eire Og felt the risk but for defending of Benny Kavanagh and Mark Furey to bottle up Andrew Kehoe. At the other end of the pitch Craig Kearney felt the risk of it when Murtagh Ware intercepted the ball but scramble defence from Pal meant Ware opted to fist a point.
Byran McMahon curled the ball lovely from outside the left post at Braun end to level the game. Joshua Egan found himself in space and took it to the Eire Og defence before shifting the ball to Conor Crowley who finds Shane O’Neill on the loop and kicking his second of the night.
The next two scores came from Ross Dunphy who gathered another pass from outside the 45 and called his mark, converts from a few yards off the endline before his 4th of the game in just 25 minutes when he cut inside and kicked off his left under pressure. Murtagh Ware converted a dead ball also.
Pal centre forward Shane O’Neill who seemed to be gathering possession in his own full back line at times throughout the game created himself some space and converted making it all square on 26 minutes.
Lovely hands by Finbarr Kavanagh and Jamie Kenny opened up Eire Og and Ciaran Moran found himself 1 on 1 with Johnny Furey and slotted the ball to the back of the net making it a 3-point game.
A long ball from Shane O Neill was knocked down by Finbarr Kavanagh on edge of the square and Jason Kane was first to react and put it over the bar. Both number 14s then traded points sending the teams down the tunnel at 1-7 to 0-6 to the Pal men.
It was the Pal men again that reacted to referee Johnny Murphys whistle the quickest and worked a free from which Andrew Kehoe gathered a breaking ball to open the scoring for the second half.
This was going to be the last score for Pal until the 43rd minute as Eire Og like they did in the Intermediate game before this started to grip the game and turn the screw. Colm Hulton and Sean Gannon held the ball well and found their captain Mark Furey who finished a good move.
In the resulting kickout Lee Moore cut it out and finds sharpshooter Dunphy who added his 5th point. A long ball from Ware resulted in Kearney parrying only for Hulton to light onto the break but couldn’t keep his effort below the cross bar, but brought it back to a 2 point game.
Mark Furey found himself on the end of an Eire Og move but Furey missed right of Kearney’s goal with Benny Kavanagh across waiting for an easy tap in. Lee Moore finished off under pressure before Shane O’Neill glided through the defence to enhance his team’s lead back to 2.
The closing stages of this game were very much edge of seat for all in the grounds as a great move through the hands by Pal looked like goal incoming but combination of Shane Buggy and Johnny Furey forced the goal scorer Moran to over carry.
It was Eire Og youngster Alex Delaney who hit a sweet point from the right hand side of pitch at the Braun end to bring it back to 1 point game with just 6 minutes of ordinary time remaining.
Eire Og and Pal were looking at the clock on scoreboard as everyone was looking at their watches which read 10.03pm as a Darragh O Brien diving catch for a mark give him a chance to level the game.
The effort which was about 40 metres out and 10 metres in from the terrace sideline looked as if it was curling in with precision only for it to tail off last second and hit the post with Pal defenders gathering possession and Johnny Murphy blowing the final whistle giving Pal 2 wins from 2 for Pal in this group on a scoreline of 1-9 to 11.
Eire Og: Johnny Furey; Cathal Kelly, Shane Buggy, Benny Kavanagh; Alex Delaney, Mark Furey ©, Paul McElligot; Sean Gannon, Kyle O’Byrne; Lee Moore, Darragh O’Brien, Diarmuid Ruth; Ross Dunphy, Murtough Ware, Colm Hulton.
Subs: Kyle Nolan for O’Byrne (3mins inj), Kieran Nolan for Moore (45mins), Cormac Mullins for Ruth (48mins), Niall Quinlan for Ware (50mins), Eoghan Byrne for Kavanagh (54mins).
Scorers: Ross Dunphy 0-5 (1m), Murtagh Ware 0-1 (1f), Lee Moore 0-2, Mark Furey 0-1, Colm Hulton 0-1, Alex Delaney 0-1.
Palatine: Craig Kearney; Conor O’Doherty, Cian Cashman, Jack Deacy; Ciaran Moran ©, Jamie Kenny, Cillian Duff; Jason Kane, Finbarr Kavanagh; Bryan McMahon, Shane O’Neill, Tomas Kenny; Andrew Kehoe, Conor Crowley, Josh Egan.
Subs: Brandon Cassidy for Kehoe (48mins), Gavin Healy for Jamie Kenny (59mins), James Cranny for Crowley (62mins).
Scorers: Shane O’Neill 0-4 (1f), Tomas Kenny 0-1, Byran McMahon 0-1, Ciaran Moran 1-0, Jason Kane 0-1, Conor Crowley 0-1, Andrew Kehoe 0-1.
Referee: Jonathan Murphy.
