No joy for Stradbally in Clonakilty

Playing three weekends in a row took its toll on Stradbally’s senior footballers on Sunday afternoon when suffered a one point defeat to Cork champions Castlehaven in the Munster Senior Club semi finals at Clonakilty.

The newly crowned Déise champions played with wind and rain at their backs and used the elements as much as they could to their advantage racing into a five points to one lead by the break.

Even playing into the elements in the second half, Stradbally did well, but conceding the games only goal ten minutes from the hour mark was to prove costly.

Stradbally opened the scoring in this game with less than twenty seconds on the clock when David Grey who hit their match winning score against The Nire the previous weekend getting the ball rolling.

Shane Ahearne who proved inspirational in Stradbally winning a seventeenth county title followed up David Grey’s score when he converted a ’45, but the Cork champions soon halved Stradbally’s lead when Sean Dineen pointed.

However from here on in to the break it was Stradbally all the way. Ger Power, Paddy Kiely, Niall Curran and Shane Ahearne all hit points to give Stradbally a 0-6 to 0-1 lead at the break, making the odds that bookies were giving earlier in the week look totally ridiculous.

Castlehaven hit the first scores of the second half through Shane Nolan and Brian Hurley and with fifteen minutes of the half despite playing against the elements Stradbally still held a 0-6 to 0-3 advantage.

However, disaster struck for Stradbally ten minutes from time when a Damien Cahalane delivery was not dealt with by Oliver Costelloe as he would have like and the ball fell to Sean Cahalane who finished to the net to tie the scoring a 0-6 to 1-3.

Damien Cahalane and Mark Collins kicked further scores for the Cork champions over the next eight minutes to give them a two point advantage, but credit Stradbally, they kept plugging away and kicked a point from Niall Curran on the hour mark but the score that they craved for to send the game into extra time never came.

Castlehaven – P Hurley; D Limerick, L Collins, T O'Leary; R Whelton, D Cahalane, C Hayes; S Dineen, D Hurley; S Cahalane, M Collins, A Cahalane; S Nolan, B Hurley, S Hurley. Sub: S Hurley for R Whelton.

Scorers: S Cahalane 1-0, B Hurley, M Collins, D Cahalane, S Dineen, S Nolan 0-1 each.

Stradbally – O Costelloe; A Doyle, K Coffey, P Doyle; T Grey, E Rocket, S Lannon; M Walsh, D Grey; P Kiely, G Power, J Coffey; N Curran, S Ahearne, R Ahearne. Subs: S Cunningham for D Grey, T Curran for G Power.

Scorers: N Curran (2f), S Ahearne (1 '45', 1f) 0-2 each, G Power, P Kiely, D Grey 0-1 each.

Ref – D O'Mahony (Tipperary)