Misfiring Munchies eventually shake off Kildallan

JFC round 1

Munterconnaught 1-16

Kildallan 0-15

Eddie Halligan at St Felim’s Park

In-form Munterconnaught got their Junior Championship campaign off to a winning start when they held off the challenge of Kildallan with a hard fought victory in St Felim’s Park, Drumalee on Saturday evening last.

Much of the story of this game can be boiled down to Kildallan’s excellent efficiency on two-pointers throughout and in contrast, Munterconnaught’s wastefulness in front of goal where they registered nine wides in the second half along with four attempts falling into the grateful arms of Kildallan goalkeeper John Conaty. However, with the game at 1-15 to 0-15 going into injury time and Kildallan growing more dangerous, the Munchies showed composure to see the game out with a late point from the ever-reliant Enda O’Shea sealing the win.

Munterconnaught got off to a flyer and were in a commanding position by the ninth minute where the led 1-3 to 0-0 with the goal excellently taken by Ryan Nwaneri when he latched on to the end of swift move involving Enda O’Shea to bury an unstoppable shot to the net. Ryan Gilsenan and frees from Daniel Yore and O’Shea accounted for the Munchies early points before corner-back Eoghan Brady blazed over a well worked score involving Ryan O’Neill and Fergal Maguire to get the Ballyconnell-based side off the mark.

O’Neill cancelled out O’Shea’s free with the first of KIldallan’s two-pointers in the 18th minute, but Munterconnaught stepped on the gas soon after with a point from Yore and added another through Nathan DeKleer when the towering midfielder cleanly won Conaty’s kick-out and swapped a quick one-two with Paddy Matthews to curl over a good score.

Leading 1-6 to 0-3 by the 20th minute, an air of inevitability grew around St Felim’s Park that Munterconnaught’s superiority would leave Kildallan in their wake but the men from west Cavan had other ideas and within eight minutes, the sides were level at 1-7 to 0-10.

Key to the Kildallan spark was their excellent use of the two-pointers; Niall Ward scorched over a beauty, Brandon Cooke pointed a free from 45 yards before a superb O’Neill effort had the sides level - but Kildallan now had their tails up and were playing with fluency.

Although Munterconnaught appeared rattled, credit goes to the men in blue in somewhat stifling the Kildallan onslaught and managing to add a couple of key scores of their own through O’Shea and Gilsenan to leave the scores at 1-9 to 0-10 at the interval.

Munterconnaught started the second half in the same way as they did the first when they dominated the opening exchanges from the throw in and in doing so, they dismantled Conaty’s kick-out which was the platform for majors from Nwaneri, O’Shea (free) and Eoin O’Shea. O’Neill got Kildallan up and running with a free in the 37th minute before racing onto an excellentl- weighted pass from Fergal Maguire to scorch over a brilliant two-pointer to leave two between the sides at 1-12 to 0-13.

Daniel Yore almost put significant daylight between the sides only to be denied with a brilliant save from Conaty before the same player and another O’Shea free nudged Munterconnaught further in front at 1-15 to 0-13 by the 47th minute. At this stage, Munterconnaught were on top and created several chances but they were guilty of poor shooting in front of goal and in doing so, kept a dangerous Kildallan side in the hunt as the game entered the final stretch.

A symbol of how dangerous Kildallan can be came in the 58th minute when O’Neill fielded a high looping ball into the full forward line and when he cut inside two defenders, it looked inevitable that the Munterconnaught net would be rattled only for O’Neill to see his shot skew high off the target as Munchies and their supporters alike breathed a huge sigh of relief.

O’Neill pointed in injury time to leave the score at 1-15 and 0-15 as Kildallan kept Munterconnaught honest, but Enda O’Shea was the right man at the right time to float over the insurance score to seal victory for Munterconnaught and get their championship campaign off on a winning note.

Munterconnaught: John McCabe, Fearghal Keogan, Cian O’Shea, Cejay Reilly, Conor Hetherton, Sean Hendrick, Corey Gilsenan, Danny Nolan, Nathan DeKleer (0-1), Paddy Matthews, Eoin O’Shea (0-1), Ryan Nwaneri (1-1), Daniel Yore (0-4, 1f), Ryan Gilsenan (0-2), Enda O’Shea (0-7, 5f)

Subs: Stephen Sheridan for Paddy Matthews; Sean Nolan for Ryan Gilsenan; Cory Reilly for Daniel Yore; Tadhg Morrissey for Cejay Reilly

Kildallan: John Conaty, Oisin Murray, Darragh Crowe, Eoghan Brady (0-1), Jack Moran, Brandon Cooke (0-2, 2pt-f), Oisin Lunney, Padraig Donohoe, Niall Ward (0-2, 2pt), Shaun Gallagher, Connor Donohoe, James O Reilly, Ryan O’Neill (0-10, 3-2pt, 2f) Fergal Maguire, Neasan Neary

Subs: Jesse McDwyer for Padraig Donohoe