A third title in five years for De La Salle

De La Salle will play Newmarket-on-Fergus or Cratloe in the Munster Club Semi Final as the Waterford representatives after they won a third county final in five years at Fraher Field on Sunday afternoon, easily accounting for Dungarvan.

Dungarvan went into this final in more than hope than expectation. They had a very young team, the average age of the starting team was not yet 21 with three of the starting fifteen still minors.

5,500 people entered the ground to see this game all hoping that Dungarvan’s young team would at least make a game of it, as the two previous finals proved one way traffic. Unfortunately, this final did go down the same road, and many will not be wondering what potential damage the defeat might have done to the Dungarvan players in the long term.

If Dungarvan can bounce back next year and have another good year, without maybe winning the title, then there is the possibility that the Waterford News and Star Cup will find a home in the Old Boro in the coming years, but if they don’t have a good year in 2013, then the road towards getting the chance to win a first title since 1941 could be a long one.

From an early stage in this game the writing was on the wall as far as Dungarvan was concerned.

Within three minutes of the games starting De La Salle were four points to the good. Jake Dillon gave them the lead on two minutes when he converted a free and seconds later John Mullane after a good run picked him out and from close range he gave Darren Duggan no chance in the Dungarvan goal.

Both sides traded scores over the following minutes. Cormac Curran pointed for Dungarvan on four minutes. Jake Dillon from a free, Sean Ryan, Jake Dillon from another free and Jack Kennedy all raised white flags to give De La Salle a 1-4 to 0-2 lead after ten minutes.

Cormac Curran pulled a point back for Dungarvan and moments later Stevie Brenner did well to keep out a Ryan Donnelly effort and from a resulting ’65 Cormac Curran pointed to leave just Jake Dillon’s third minute goal between the sides after fifteen minutes.

Cormac Curran put over a brace of frees to leave just one between the sides and it was beginning to look that a shock result could well be on the cards. But this was as good as it got for Dungarvan.

John Mullane and Paudi Nevin pointed inside sixty seconds of each other and when John Mullane, Jack Kennedy and Jake Dillon followed up with subsequent scores, De La Salle lead by double scores.

Colm Curran hit a point for Dungarvan on twenty seven minutes after he was set up by older brother Cormac, but points from John Keane and Dean Twomey were registered to give De La Salle a 1-11 to 0-7 lead at the break.

De La Salle at the start of the second half came out all guns blazing. Within five minutes of the restart they had hit points courtesy of Bryan Phelan, Eddie Barrett, John Mullane and John Keane to give them a 1-15 to 0-7 lead.

Dungarvan responded with three points in a row from Cormac Curran but if they were to get back into this game they had left themselves with a lot to do and needed to get far more of their forwards in with a chance of scoring, and not to be relying on Cormac Curran to strike placed balls.

Shane McNulty, Bryan Phelan, Jake Dillon and John Keane hit points inside a eight minute spell to give De La Salle a 1-19 to 0-10 lead with eleven minutes to play.

Ryan Donnelly pulled a point back for Dungarvan with ten minutes to go after some good work by Gavin Crotty and moments later Stephen Daniels got between the posts and Colm Curran as he shot for goal to deflect the ball out for a ’65 from which Cormac Curran made no mistake.

De La Salle at this stage appeared to be starting to take a tighter pull on the reigns. They had the game won and did not inflict the damage that they could have on Dungarvan in the closing minutes even if they did add points from Shane McNulty and Paudi Nevin in the closing minutes which helped the city side to a 1-21 to 0-12 victory.

   
De La Salle: Stephen Brenner; Conan Watt, Ian Flynn, Stephen Daniels; Bryan Phelan, Kevin Moran, Eoin Madigan; Eddie Barrett, Dean Twomey; David Greene, Jake Dillon, Paudi Nevin; John Mullane, Jack Kennedy, John Keane. Subs: Shane McNulty for David Greene, Oran Keevers for Eoin Madigan, Chris Sheehan for Conan Watt, Jamie Sage for John Keane, Thomas Kearney for Eddie Barrett.

Scorers: Jake Dillon 1-4 (0-4 frees), John Keane, Jack Kennedy, John Mullane 0-3 each, Bryan Phelan (2 frees), Paudie Nevin, Shane McNulty 0-2 each, Eddie Barrett, Dean Twomey 0-1 each.

 

Dungarvan: Darren Duggan; Kevin Daly, Derek Barry, Luke Egan; Shane Kearney, Kenny Moore, Conor Sheridan; Jamie Nagle, Sean Ryan; Eoin Healy, Gavin Crotty, Cormac Curran; Colm Curran, Ryan Donnelly, Cathal Curran. Subs: Karl Duggan for Conor Sheridan, Mickey Power for Cathal Curran, David Houlihan for Ryan Donnelly.

Scorers: Cormac Curran 0-9 (0-7 frees, 0-2 '65s'), Sean Ryan, Gavin Crotty, Colm Curran 0-1 each.

 

Referee:  Michael Wadding (Roanmore).