County final win for Kill last weekend equals Munster semi final this weekend

There can be no disputing that these are difficult times, and many clubs have found some of their best players in their late teens, into their twenties and even early thirties are having to leave these shores in search of employment prospects, meaning that clubs are finding it harder and harder to put fifteen players out for any game.

The GAA both locally and nationally will have difficult choices to make in the few years. One may be to cut the number on teams from the present 15 to maybe 13, 12, 11 or even 9 or else have neighbouring clubs pool their resources together.

Already the latter is happening. Kill and Fenor merged this year. In hurling the players of the here to fore two clubs played in the Fenor shirt and under the Fenor name and in Football the Kill name and colours were used. With weeks now there are talks of other similar mergers happening for the year ahead. If this happens or not will be seen in the coming weeks as clubs hold their Annual General Meetings and register players to play with different teams.

The merger or joining of Kill and Fenor certainly worked in its first year.

After Kill appeared in last years Eastern Final of the Junior Football Championship they were always going to be one of the favourites to win this years championship and when they merged with Fenor they were going to be even stronger.

Their win over Roanmore may not be as easy as some would have expected, but a win is a win. It does not matter if it is by one point or twenty-one points.

In the county final last week they were favourites to beat Old Parish and for 50 minutes they were the better side, but ‘The Shocks’ put in a terrific last ten minutes to earn a draw with the second last kick of the game.

For the replay last Saturday in Walsh Park many expected the game to be just as close. Kill would have been the favourites to win, but Old Parish was not to be discounted. A lot of people fancied them (myself included) who thought they could actually win, but we were to be left disappointed.

Like in the drawn game the Mid county side had a great start in this game, but unlike the drawn game, they never relented in their pressure on the Old Parish half of the field and continued to look for scores right to the end even though the game was well won before the final whistle was sounded.

Inside three minutes of this game starting Kill were five points up.

Ben Gallagher kicked the first score inside a minute of the game throwing in. Ray Hennessy who was voted man of the match in this game finishing with 2-5 behind his name followed up with the first score of the game and on three minutes Sean Cheasty was in the right place at the right time to capitalise on a Conor Hennessy lob that was not dealt with by Aidan Power in the Old Parish goal. Kill could have added to their early great start by Sean Cheasty saw his effort go just wide.

Old Parish however did not throw in the towel and in the following minutes were somewhat unlucky not to have reigned in and maybe even cancelling out Kill’s great start as Michael French and Graham Guiry saw efforts go wide of the posts.

John Flynn extended Kill’s lead with a point on nine minutes, but points from Shane Power and Declan Ryan saw them move closer to Kill but still trailed the mid county side 1-3 to 0-2 after 12 minutes.

Kill missed chances through John Flynn and Ben Gallagher to further extend their lead before Conor Hennessy and Ray Hennessy did kick scores to give them a 1-5 to 0-2 lead with 22 minutes played.

Another Conor Hennessy point was registered for Kill before they his a second goal five minutes from the break. Anthony Kiely was picked out with a good pass from John Flynn who beat Aidan Power to give his side a ten point lead.

Old Parish however would give themselves hope going into the second half as they kicked the last two scores of the first thirty minutes through Cormac Nugent and Declan Ryan from a free to leave ‘The Shocks’ trailing 2-6 to 0-4 at the turn around.

Old Parish at the start of the second half continued where they left off in the first half kicking the first two points through Declan Ryan and Cormac Nugent to leave six between the teams and you had to feel if Old Parish could kick a goal in the following few minutes without conceding one, they were going to be in with a major shout of winning this game.

Ray Hennessy put over a point on 37 minutes to leave seven between the sides, and Declan Ryan from a sideline lick responded for Old Parish at the end of the third quarter.

But this score as good as it was failed to ignite Old Parish. In fact it was to prove to be their last score of the game.

Kill on the other hand went on to kick six further scores in this game, half of them resulting in green flags.

Ray Hennessy had the first of two green flags waved by the umpire for his efforts on 46 minutes after he was set up by Sean Cheasty and the same player followed up with a brace of points to give the mid county side a 3-9 to 0-7 lead.

Seven minutes from time Ben Gallagher brought their point tally on the score board to a double digit total and moments later Ray Hennessy hit his second goal of the game after he was picked out by John Flynn.

In added time at the end of the hour Old Parish goalkeeper Aidan Power gave away a penalty which Ben Gallagher slammed to the net to help his side to a comfortable 5-10 to 0-7 victory.

Kill’s celebrations will by now have died down as they are back in action this weekend in the Munster Championship where they will be hoping to become the fourth Waterford side to reach a Munster Club final this year, following in the footsteps of The Nire, Cappoquin and Modeligo.

Limerick champions Glin will be their opponents in Newcastlewest this Sunday.

Glin are one of a handful of clubs that are consistently knocking at the door when it comes to the Junior Football Championship in Limerick over the past decade but up to some weeks back it was not to be for them as they often stumbled on the closing straight.

Their path to this weekend’s game has been the more emphatic looking to be a good side beating Patrickswell semi-final with a ten-minute blitz just after the break.

They have won all 14 games played this year, but at times they played within themselves on most other occasions and even had a narrow scrapes.

Reports coming out of Limerick despite these 13 wins, a dozen of them in Limerick and one game against Inane Rovers from Tipperary in the Munster semi final last time out, suggest that that Glin are notorious for having one poor game every year and so far this year it has not happened, which will have Kill supporters hoping that it will come this weekend.

The standard of Junior Football would appear to be slightly better than what it is in Waterford, which could well mean that the Limerick side will go into this weekends game as the favourites, but Kill are an experienced side and should not be ruled out of contention of winning a place in the Munster Final in early December.

Kill: Kieran Dunphy; David Sullivan, Stephen Dunne, Luke Middleton; Fergal Whelan, Jim Halley, Brian Flynn; Conor Hennessy, Niall Hennessy; John Flynn Anthony Kiely, Ben Gallagher; Conor Rockett, Ray Hennessy, Sean Cheasty. Subs: Jim Murphy for David O’Sullivan, Mick Ahearne for Brian Flynn, Peter Kirwan for Conor Rockett, Paudie Raher for Ray Hennessy, Peter Torpey for John Flynn.

Scorers: Ray Hennessy 2-5 (0-1f), Ben Gallagher 1-2 (1-0 pen), Sean Cheasty, Anthony Kiely 1-0 each, Conor Hennessy 0-2, John Flynn 0-1.

Old Parish: Aidan Power; Ian Curran, Patrick Conway, Dan Murphy; Andy Walsh, Michael French, Stephen Conway; Cormac Nugent, Shane Power; Tomas Curran, Declan Ryan, Declan Power; Ray Terry, Graham Guiry, Padraig Healy. Subs: Patrick Keating for Dan Murphy, Diarmuid Curran for Ray Terry, Bryan French for Tomas Curran, Tomas Galvin for Ian Curran, Brendan Hogan for Declan Power.

Scorers: Declan Ryan 0-4 (0-3 f, 0-1 SL), Cormac Nugent 0-2, Shane Power 0-1.

Referee: Pat Casey (Affane/Cappoquin).