Carrickshock G.A.A. 13 Samhain 2016
Intermediate Championship Final
Carrickshock 0-13 Tullogher 0-6.
What a day it was on Sunday. As Club Chairman Tommy Murphy put it so well at the celebration meal – “6th November 2016 will live long in the memory of Carrickshock supporters everywhere”. A strange kind of a game, it may not have reached the standards of the semi-final, but that didn’t bother any of us when the final whistle went with the scoreboard reading Carrickshock 0-13, Tullogher 0-6. 3 points in the first 3 minutes demonstrated the Shocks scoring threat. Soon after we saw what both defences were capable of – after Damien Walsh pointed in the 7th minute the next 20 minutes saw only 1 point – a free from Tullogher – until Kevin pointed a 65. After Walter Walsh made a threatening run to set up Liam Barron for a fine point, 0-5 to 0-3 looked a very slender lead approaching half-time after playing with a stiff breeze. A foul on Kevin, which he converted, then Mark O’Dwyer put one over from a very tight angle to put a bit more daylight in it at half-time, 0-7 to 0-3.
Some of the 1st half trends continued into the 2nd half – another foul on Kevin in the 2nd minute and he converted again (0-8 to 0-3). Richie Power was on the field now and causing panic every time he touched the ball. But when Walter put over Tullogher’s best score of the game and Cian O’Donaghue put over 2 frees either side of a red card for our captain John Tennyson, the score stood at 0-9 to 0-6. With 20 minutes to go we were worried! A well-worked free and John Power put over his 2nd point to help settle the nerves. Michael Rice moved to centre-back and, with John Dalton leading a dominant full-back line, Carrickshock’s 14 men held Tullogher scoreless for the rest of the game. When Brian Donavanpointed, then John Butler, it was double scores 0-12 to 0-6 with only 3 minutes left. As Darragh Brennan finished off another clever free from Kevin on the stroke of normal time we could maybe start to breathe easy. Finally, when the 3 minutes of injury time ran out, the memory of last year’s relegation final defeat was wiped out. And now we have a Leinster Championship to look forward to – maybe we’ll start to think about that once normality returns to Hugginstown!
