AIB Munster GAA Hurling Junior Club Championship Final – Kildorrery (Cork) 1-11 St. Kieran’s (Limerick) 0-12

Awesome O’Brien the hero again for Kildorrery

By Denis Hurley for the Irish Examiner newspaper

Kildorrery (Cork) 1-11 St Kieran’s (Limerick) 0-12

Click to view photos from the game

An unanswered 1-2 in the space of three second-half minutes turned the AIB Munster JHC final Kildorrery’s way at Mallow yesterday. For much of the contest, St Kieran’s of Limerick had edged a tight and tense affair, holding a precious 0-9 to 0-8 lead at the start of the fourth quarter. All of a sudden a goal, quickly followed by two points, put Kildorrery into the game’s biggest lead, and though Kieran’s never fell away, they had lost their momentum and could not pull level again.

The identity of Kildorrery’s main man was wholly unsurprising. During their campaign, from divisional championship through to county and onto provincial, Peter O’Brien has been the main score-getter and that was the case again. Despite being hindered with an injury which meant he was sited at full-forward for most of the game, O’Brien finished with 1-6, the goal coming in the 48th minute after Will Fouhy’s mazy run.

That was followed by an inspirational point from the left corner and then O’Brien turned provider for Richard McEniry to open up a four-point lead. It was hardly surprising that Kildorrery selector Pat Fenton was so fulsome in his praise for O’Brien. “Peter did the business, even though he was struggling,” he said. “He has great heart, he’s a never-say-die guy. “There are no bad hearts in Kildorrery, after all the tough games we’ve had! “It’s a wonderful feeling to think that we are Munster champions, going back four or five years we were struggling to win a first round in North Cork. All the parish, to a man and woman, supported us, there were people coming up to me who I thought didn’t know me and were wishing us well.”

It matters little now, but Kildorrery took a while to settle, and trailed by 0-3 to 0-1 in the first 10 minutes, Johnny McCarthy instrumental for Kieran’s while Jack Ben Harnett had been unlucky with a goal effort. Kildorrery could not get O’Brien on the ball enough but he did what he could with limited supply and three from him, including two frees, had them 0-4 to 0-3 in front.

The momentum was going one way and then the other, though, and Kieran’s again seized the initiative as Donie Nolan scored two points but injured himself in executing the latter, when a goal was on, That made it 0-6 to 0-5 and they could have pushed even further in front when Ray Cahill was fouled for a penalty but James Muckell fired his shot over the bar. Nevertheless, when sub Ian Mackessy added a free in injury time, it meant that the Limerick side led by three at half-time.

While an O’Brien brace in the second half’s formative moments had Kildorrery back in touch, poor shooting generally was letting them down despite enjoying much of the play, with Michael Walsh dominant at centre-back. After Mackessy and Kildorrery’s Dave Kelly had exchanged points, Eamonn O’Connor and then Finbarr Stapleton had goal chances for the North Cork side, denied by John Greaney’s double-save, before O’Brien struck.

With a 1-10 to 0-9 lead and 10 minutes left, Kildorrery were clear favourites, but Kieran’s plugged away and Mackessy, Cahill and McCarthy all scored to bring the deficit back to a point. Stapleton gave Kildorrery some breathing space again, though, and the late pressure was withstood to set off wild celebrations and extinguish the bad memories of recent football losses.

“I think we can finally put to bed the heartache of the last few years and move on,” O’Brien said. “The last four or five years, the talk has been about the finals that we have lost but now we can talk about how good this team is. “We have three trophies this year and hopefully we can add another, we have Thomastown next. It’s a dream come true, I never thought I’d be playing for Kildorrery in December!”

Scorers for Kildorrery: P O’Brien 1-6 (0-4f), E O’Connor 0-2, D Kelly, R McEniry, F Stapleton 0-1 each.

Scorers for St Kieran’s: J McCarthy, I Mackessy (0-3f) 0-3 each, D Nolan (0-1f), J Muckell (0-1 penalty) 0-2 each, R Cahill, D Treacy 0-1 each.

KILDORRERY: J McEniry; N Kelly, S Fitzgerald, L Kelly; J Howard, M Walsh, M Lillis; C Ó Baoill, J McCarthy; E O’Connor, R McEniry, W Fouhy; D Kelly, P O’Brien, F Stapleton
Sub: S Kelly for Fouhy (52).

ST KIERAN’S: J Greaney; B McCarthy, P McCarthy, M Windle; S Windle, P Windle, M Flynn; A Molyneaux, JB Harnett; R Cahill, J McCarthy, D Treacy; D Collum, D Nolan, J Muckell
Subs: I Mackessy for Nolan (27, injured), T Doyle for M Windle (55).

Referee: Damian Fox (Clare)

Next Round – the winners play the Leinster Champions on January 26^th / 27^th in the All-Ireland Club Junior Hurling Semi-Final.

Contact Munster GAA PRO Ed Donnelly at pro.munster@gaa.ie for more information

For the Record

Munster GAA HURLING Club Junior Championship 2012

Quarter-Final

Saturday November 10^th

@ Feenagh                            St. Kierans (Limerick) 0-14 Kilsheelan-Kilcash (Tipperary) 1-2

Semi-Finals
Sunday November 18^th

@ Fitzgerald Stadium Killarney       St. Kieran’s (Limerick) 1-11 Kenmare Shamrocks (Kerry) 1-7

@ WIT GAA Grounds                       Kildorrey (Cork) 4-19 Butlerstown (Waterford) 0-11

Final (Extra time)

Sunday December 9^th (Replay date – Saturday December 15th)

@ Mallow                                           St. Kierans (Limerick) v Kildorrey (Cork)         @ 2:00pm

Odds and Ends

Cork clubs have won at least 1 match in each of the years of the competition since beginning in 2003 and have won 10 of their last 11 matches over the last five seasons, including the last 2 titles courtesy of Meelin and Charleville.

The Limerick representatives in the Munster Junior Hurling Championship have won at least 1 match in each of the last 4 seasons. Limerick’s record during that period is Won 6 Lost 2.

Since 2003, the average winning margin of victory in the Munster Club Junior Hurling Final has been 10.6 points. The winning club has averaged 21.0 aggregate points while the losing club has averaged 10.4 aggregate points.

Munster GAA Club HURLING Junior Championship Roll Of Honour

Cork (6) – 2004, 2005, 2006, 2008, 2010, 2011

Clare (1) – 2003

Tipperary (1) – 2007

Limerick (1) – 2009

All Ireland GAA Club HURLING Junior Championship

In the Club Junior Hurling All Ireland Roll of Honour, Cork top the charts with 4 titles while Limerick have 1 title courtesy of Blackrock in 2009/2010.

Munster GAA Club HURLING Junior Championship – List of Winning Teams

2003 – Newmarket-on-Fergus (Clare) 3-10 Dromina (Cork) 1-10

NEWMARKET-ON-FERGUS, CLARE: Kieran Devitt, Damien Mulcahy, Anthony Kilmartin, John McInerney, Jimmy Clancy, Dara Naughton , Robert Mullins, Rory Murphy (Captain), Marty Meehan, Shane Liddy, James McInerney, Robert Shanahan, Shane O’Leary, Cathal Kilmartin, Bernard Gaffney
Subs : – Keith Begley for Shane Liddy, Bruce Orpen for Robert Mullins

2004 – Ballygarvan (Cork) 0-16 Tramore (Waterford) 1-5
BALLYGARVAN, CORK: Joe Kennefick; Dona Sweeney, Joe Spillane, Daniel Browne; Ger Spillane, Cian O’Conchur, Alan Butler; Finbarr Barry, Stephen White; Ken Ashman, Shane O’Leary, Gary White; Morgan Sheehy, Michael Dowd, Liam Dillon
Subs: Robert Bouse for G. Spillane (injured); Brian Daly for Dowd (injured)

2005 – Fr. O’Neills (Cork) 1-12 Knockshegowna (Tipperary) 0-7
FR. O’NEILLS, CORK: David Dorgan, Brian O’Driscoll, Dick O’Neill, John O’Mahony, Ray O’Neill, Brian O’Callaghan, Billy Murphy, Jerh Holland (Captain), Ger O’Leary, Colin Buckley, Eoin Conway, Edmund Holland, Podge Butler, John Flavin, Kieran Wall
Subs used: Eoghan McCarthy for Colin Buckley
Unused Subs: Paul Colbert, Quintin Higgins, Eoin Griffin, David Colbert, Mike O’Brien, Rob Murphy, Shane Harrington, James O’Donoghue, James Walsh, Luke Swayne, Ger Hennessy, Shane Donnelly.

2006 – Kilworth (Cork) 4-16 Knockshegowna (Tipperary) 1-7
KILWORTH, CORK: Kieran Walsh (Captain); Alan Kenny, John Hegarty, Damien McNamara; Maurice McNamara, Will Twomey, Mark O’Connor; Dion Cahill, Elton Pierce; Thomas Twomey, Brian Tobin, Joe Cahill; Paudie Lynch, Adrian Mannix, Damien O’Donoghue.
Subs: Declan Tobin for John Hegarty (injured), Aidan Kenny for Thomas Twomey, James Moakley for Brian Tobin, Ned O’Brien for Adrian Mannix, Noel Gowen for Dion Cahill

2007 – Moyle Rovers (Tipperary) 3-10 Barryroe (Cork) 0-9
MOYLE ROVERS, TIPPERARY: Ian Browne; Michael Mulcahy, Noel Wall (Captain), Padraig Kelly; Seán Keating, Daniel Lyne, Ronan Desmond; Martin Dunne, Peter Acheson; Barry Whelan, Eddie Whelan, Sean Carey; Brian Mulvihill, Paul Johnson, Declan Browne
Subs: James Williams for Johnson, John Shanahan for Mulvihill, Kevin Condon for Carey, David Lorigan for Barry Whelan, Denis McGrath for Eddie Whelan

2008 – Dripsey (Cork) 2-11 Kilgarvan (Kerry) 1-3
DRIPSEY, CORK: Aidan Buckley; Barry Kelleher, John O’Mahony, Liam Buckley; John Carey, John O’Riordan, Pat O’Riordan; David Foley, Conor Hayes; Gary Murphy, Diarmuid O’Riordan (Captain), Mark O’Sullivan; David O’Sullivan, John Hogan, David Buckley.
Subs: Ger Manley for Hogan (44th); Thomas Ryan for Buckley (45th)

2009 – Blackrock (Limerick) 1-12 Fermoy (Cork) 0-14
BLACKROCK, LIMERICK: Pat Heffernan; Nigel Hosford, TG Ryan, Tommy Clifford; Ritchie Murphy, Dave Moloney, Niall Moloney; Brian Moloney, Pa McGrath; Kevin Palmer, Ritchie McCarthy, Simon Hennessy; Ruairi O’Shaughnessy, Brendan Hennessy (Captain), Aidan Murphy.
Subs: Barry O’Shaughnessy for Palmer (38), Declan Danaher for Hennessy (48), Ken Douglas for McGrath (54)

2010 – Meelin (Cork) 5-18 St. Patricks (Tipperary) 0-9
MEELIN, CORK: Stephen M. O’Sullivan;  Mike Forrest, Denis O’Riordan, Diarmuid Lenihan;  William Buckley, Kevin Collins, Jerry Forrest (Captain); Liam Collins, William Murphy;  John Forrest, Shane O’Riordan, Brendan O’Sullivan; Eamonn Brosnan, Jeremy Curtin, D.J. O’Sullivan
Subs:  Conor Murphy for B. O’Sullivan (46);  T.J. Brosnan for D. O’Riordan (49); Ben Collins for J. Curtin (50);  Joseph O’Doherty for W. Buckley (50); Liam O’Sullivan  for S. M. O’Sullivan (55)

2011 – Charleville (Cork) 3-15 Cappamore (Limerick) 2-8
CHARLEVILLE, CORK: Cyrian Curtin; Micheal O’Flynn, Conor Fitzgerald, Alan Dennehy; Barry McCarthy, Colm O’Flynn, Brendan Dennehy; James Casey, Daniel O’Flynn (Captain); Derry Murphy, Gavin Kelleher. Alan O’Connor; Andrew Cagney, Mervyn Gammell, James O’Brien
Subs: Mark Kavanagh for Kelleher (41), P.J. O’Halloran for Gammell (58), Denis O’Sullivan for M. O’Flynn (58), Fergus O’Callaghan for Cagney (58), James Foley for D. O’Flynn (58)