Eire Og 1-5
Kilbride 0-3
Normally when covering a game it takes up two A5 refill pad pages of notes and lines. If it’s a belter of a game it can even run to a third page.
Unfortunately, for this intermediate clash, it only took up 2/3’s of one page. It wasn’t great. That’s about as kind as we can be.
To give credit to both teams, slippery conditions and first round championship nerves were perhaps to blame for some of what was on display.
There isn’t a GAA person in Carlow who’s heart wouldn’t go out to Kilbride, every player, to a man, gave their all for the jersey, as they always do but it would appear that numbers are not on their side and while that’s not a new story, they do seem to be under more pressure than previous years.
For Eire Og, they were comfortably the better side on the day but they lacked leadership up front. If it wasn’t for the accurate kicking of Luke Ramsbottom from frees they could have found themselves in a closer contest.
The entire game produced just two scores from play. A brilliant goal from Cillian McGrath having just come on as a sub with 15 minutes to go and a good point from Cialan Brady in the first half which he had to strike off balance were the only two stand out moments of the game, and although tempted to include the “Rock Sullivan” like run from Joe Waters, out of defence, he seemed to slip on the second contact, so it doesn’t qualify.
Kilbride had only one name on the scoresheet and it won’t come as a surprise to anyone that it was county star Darragh Foley. His kicking was good, drawing the ball in and high over the bar each time.
Eire Og did have players who tried to influence the game when possible, Eoin Maddock put in a good shift at half forward and Dylan Salter and Dean Hayden were solid when required.
At half time it was 0-4 to 0-1 in favour of Eire Og, with only one score from play in that half. The resumption gave us more of the same with only one score from play which was the goal. The only other scores were Foley frees and a free from Ronan Quinlan.
Eire Og: Sean Murphy; Shane Kelly, Dean Hayden, Luke Murphy; Daniel Hayden, Stephen Lacey, Alex Delaney; Cialan Brady(0-1), Mark Daly; Eoin Maddock, Luke Ramsbottom(0-3f), Tom Behan; Ronan Quinlan (0-1f), Mark Daly, Jody Murphy. Subs: Cillian McGrath (1-0) for Mark Daly, Jack Murphy for Shane Kelly
Kilbride: Tomas Gray; Griffin Kennedy, John O’Neill, Michael O’Brien; Rian Farrell, Mark Curry, Michael Brown; Darragh Foley (0-3f), Pierce Dean; Stephen Curry, Mitch Kelly, Joe Waters; James Foley, Stephen Carroll, Sean Foley. Subs: Jack Cranny for Griffin Kennedy.
Referee: David Hickey (Fenagh)
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