AUSTIN STACKS WIN KERRY UNDER-21 FOOTBALL TITLE AFTER HANGING ON IN TETCHY FINAL AGAINST ST BRENDANS

ACORN LIFE COUNTY UNDER-21 FOOTBALL CHAMPIONSHIP FINAL

Austin Stacks 2-10

St Brendans- 0-12

It took 72 minutes to get there but get there we did. After 66 minutes of a decent game of football, it took another six to untangle some pretty disgraceful fighting between both sets of players, after which the referee sounded the final whistle to confirm Austin Stacks as county champions.

It was an unsavoury way for a county final to finish – with the stadium announcer having to call for children and substitutes to withdraw from the pitch after the former had rushed on in the belief the game had finished and the latter coming on to get involved in the fisticuffs.

Anyway, when everything had settled down it was Conor Horan – Stacks captain and man of the match award winner – who received the cup on behalf of this team as the club bridged a 22-year gap to bring the county under-21 title back to Rock Street for the first time since 2002 with a hard-earned four-point victory over St Brendans.

Indeed, it seemed a harder earned win than it might have been given that Stacks led by nine points at half time, albeit playing with a strong wind, but for all their superiority throughout the pitch they scored just two points in the second half and made hard work of the win by the end.

That strong wind blowing straight down Austin Stack Park made this derby somewhat the proverbial game of two halves, but Stacks laid a solid foundation playing with the elements in the first half to build up that nine-point lead at the turnaround. Thereafter they had the talent, composure and nous – if not quite the scoring power – to manage the game to a successful conclusion, despite scoring just those two points in the second period.

Indeed, Stacks didn’t score for the final 35 minutes of the game (over 40 when one factors in the nonsense at the finish) – those two second half scores coming in the first two minutes – but St Brendans could do little to eat into the deficit, not helped by Odhran Ferris having his 50th minute penalty well saved by Ben Quilter.

All this with Stacks playing a 10-minute period of the second half with 14 men when full back Ruairi O’Connell was black carded for a cynical foul, but the Rockies weathered that numerical disadvantage as St Brendans failed to take advantage.

A dominant first half, with goals from Damien Hogan and Daniel Kirby, had Stacks 2-8 to 0-5 ahead at the half-time break, but despite having that strong wind advantage in the second half, St Brendans just didn’t have enough individual talent or the collective ability to overturn a deficit of that size.

The Rockies were off the mark first with Jordan Kissane converting the first of three first half frees in the second minute from a foul on Conor Horan, and a few minutes later Odhran Ferris replied with a converted free for St Brendans after his older brother Earnan was fouled.

By the seventh minute Stacks had registered four wides, a worrying statistic but one that belied a little tension in their team, but in the ninth minute they made good on all that with Hogan’s goal.

It all came from a loose crossfield pass from Eddie McCarthy that was intercepted and quickly moved down the field by Stacks before Sean Óg Brosnan set up Hogan for a simple enough finish from close range to make it 1-1 to one point.

The divisional team hit back with scores from Tomás Kennedy, Darragh O’Sullivan and Gary O’Riordan, while Paddy Lane (2) and Jordan Kissane replied with Stacks points to have the club side 1-5 to 0-4 ahead after 20 minutes.

In the 22nd minute Kerry minor Ben Murphy – a strong contender for the man of the match award with a powerful performance between centre-back and midfield – rampaged through the middle to set up Horan for a shot on goal, and when Sean Broderick saved well in the St Brendans goal the ball popped up for Kirby to hit the net from five metres out.

Late first half points from Kissane (free), Horan and Kirby pushed Stacks into that nine-point lead at the interval.

Stacks got the start to the second half that St Brendans needed – two points in the first two minutes from Murphy and Lane, but incredibly the Rockies wouldn’t raise another flag.

Darragh O’Sullivan converted five frees for St Brendans in the second period, but the nearest his team came to breaching the Stacks goal was that penalty in the 50th minute, but Quilter was equal to Ferris’s spot kick.

O’Connell was in the ‘sin bin’ at that stage, and just after his temporary departure Fionán Egan had been played through on the Stacks goal but his 43rd minute shot flew over the bar when a goal was needed, and there was a sense that St Brendans chance was gone then.

Egan’s point cut the gap to eight, 2-10 to 0-8, when it might have been six, and a goal from Ferris’s penalty would have made it a four-point game. All ifs, but and maybes in the end, as Stacks saw it out in the most unusual way: no score for what turned out to be the last 40 minutes of the game.

No matter, they got there in the end, and Stacks will celebrate this one around Rock Street and Connolly Park as much as anything they have won.

AUSTIN STACKS: Ben Quilter, Joey Nagle, Ruairí O’Connell, Luke Casey, Cian Dillane, Ben Murphy 0-1, Seán Óg Brosnan, Cillian Litchfield, Conor Horan 0-1, Daniel Kirby 1-1, Jordan Kissane 0-3 (3f), Shane Bastible, Paddy Lane 0-4 (2f), Damien Hogan 1-0, Donnacha Sayers.

Subs: Ronan Carroll for S Bastible (52), Fionnan Ryan for D Hogan (53), Padraig O’Halloran for D Sayers (58), James Fisher for J Kissane (64), Seán Heaslip for C Horan (66)

ST BRENDANS: Sean Broderick (John Mitchels), Gary O’Riordan 0-1 (Ardfert), Jake Foley (Kerins O’Rahillys), Jack Doyle (Na Gaeil), Ben Hanafin (Kerins O’Rahillys), Ciarán White 0-1 (John Mitchels), Earnan Ferris 0-1 (Ardfert), Ronan Walsh (Ardfert), Tomás Kennedy 0-1 (Kerins O’Rahillys), Eddie McCarthy (Churchill), Odhran Ferris 0-1 (f) (Ardfert), Sean Brosnan (Ardfert), Fionán Egan 0-1 (Ardfert), Daggah O’Sullivan 0-6 (5f) (Churchill), Darragh O’Connor (Kerins O’Rahillys).

Subs: Ben Donnellan (Churchill) for E McCarthy (ht), Oisin Maunsell (Na Gaeil) for S Brosnan (38), Peter Doyle (Na Gaeil) for F Egan (48), Eoin O’Flaherty (Ardfert) for C White (58)

REFEREE: Maurice Murphy

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2024-07-03T20:47:06Z dg43tfdfdgfd