This Sunday was my idea of GAA Heaven.My beloved Club playing at 1.45 p.m and the Dubs V Mayo in the All Ireland semi final at 3.30 p.m.It doesn't get much better.
Kilmessan is a fine pitch and most of the Kilmessan,in fact the overwhelming majority ,are the finest of people.
I picked up the auld Bomber Farrell on the way.He is the freshest 68 year old I know and soldiered with me with the juvenile hurlers for a decade when men were men and we inculcated the importance of courage in the game of the Gaels.
We are firmly of the view that the most important attributes of any proponent of the Games of the Gaels are located between breast and buidin i.e.heart and guts.
Still depressed after the disastrous performance of last week against Castletown in the IFC, where we effectively had an eight point start against Castletown and would have to lose by more than than that to be thrown out of the Championship and we did so lose,I was only slightly apprehensive that we might put up another gutless display.
Thanks be to God we didn't.
I N fact were we to win today by over 8 points we could advance to the playoffs.I never thought this on and would have been happy to just win the match and retain our Senior status.
We lined out thus.
Ivan Mc Cormack
Davy Stephens Evan Stephens Aaron Feeney
C,Dempsey B. Wright Davy Mac Cormack
Bomber Farrell C O Shea
Davy Gilkinson J, Moran S.Coogan
C.Harrington L.Martyn Alex Walshe.
Subs introduced.d,Keenan and J.Martin.
Blackhall led by 0-2 to 0-0 when I got there 5 minutes late.
Both teams were on fire in a well contested game of equals .The game swung from end to end in a first half some of which was poetic in its execution.
They have good forwards and our back line had to be and was magnificent in its defending,especially Finn who was marking the biggest full forward I have seen in a long time.
Sprog,Feeney,Dempsey.Wright and Spongee played with valour and skill and the full plethora of those attributes from breast to buidin were on permanent show.
The midfield was even stephen , Harry was plucking them from the sky and Lukie was the master of his markers.Any ball delivered right to him was sure of a minimum pointed free from an accurate Gilkie who punished every misdemeanour ,at least for the first half.
The other forwards tried their dam nest but just don't click fully.They did enough however to earn their keep I thought.
We went in ahead 1-9 to 0-9 and well deserved that lead.
There seemed to me to be a long delay in the referee and Blackhall returning to the fray and this had an unsettling effect on our second half display it seemed to me as we never reached the heights we attained in the first half.,which was riddled with Free's ,some of which were hard to figure and two of which ,organist us, were definitely not frees at all ,both of which were pointed in the dying minutes and which resulted in a drawn result of 0-15 to our 1-12.
Gilky was somewhat erratic in his freaking in the second half and we don't appear to have a plan B
and some of our line pucks were poorly executed .We need to sort this.
I m nitpicking a bit here as this was a hard fought gutsy display overall and a match we rightly won but were denied victory because of two poor decisions by an otherwise good referee.
Wrong decision one was when Finn was wrongly blown for throwing a ball he clearly correctly hand passed and wrong decision two was against Davy Mac for the bravest bit of defending I have seen this many a day.It happened like this.
He and his opponent pulled head height on a fast moving sliotar.The caman was struck out of his hand and his opponent hared towards goal with the sliotar on his stick. Davy followed him without caman ,caught up with him and as the guy pulled on the ball Davy USED his bare hand as a bat and struck the ball away so as the stroke missed the ball
Instead of granting him an award for bravery a free was awarded against him which caused our considerable and dedicated supporters to howl with frustration,
It was somewhat heartening to see that Black hall have stopped that hateful sledging which manifested last time we met by calling our boys Pickeys and that they have largely abandoned the habit of invading the pitch at the merest suspicion of injury and disrupting play .
I t never ceases to amaze me how there can be such a remarkable difference in spirited resistance between our hurling and football teams and it would be interesting to put the hurling team out in block in a football match to see whether that spirit of defiance would translate across.
Ivo kept a clean sheet and his presence has brought something extra to the team and Jordan when he came on had a fine game.Dylan wasn't on ling enough to be rated'
I didn't get all our scorers but Lukie got 1-4 from play ,Gilkie got at least 0-4 and Bomber and Harry a minor apiece.
Were both DOCS,both Brutons ,Liamie Dempsey,Simon Carty,Subs who were togged out today and maybe Brendan Farrell and A Few other former hurlers approached and a full commitment given I could see a Senior Championship coming our way.
But this casual approach by some which exposed us to thumpings in Leinster and against Killyon this year will have to be exorcised once and for all.
Onwards and upwards and Paddy you are doing a good job.
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