Early goals propel Fr Casey’s to Limerick senior football championship win over Galtee Gaels:
By John Redington Limerick Leader Sport
“GALTEE certainly made a game of it, but those two early goals put us in a position to dictate the play. Most satisfying of all, though, was we kept up the effort right to the end to preserve the lead we had built up.”
With both sides already through to the knock-out stages of the Irish Wire Products Limerick senior football championship prior to throw-in, there might not have been a lot at stake as Fr Caseys and Galtee Gaels clashed in the final round of qualifying Group Two .
However, Caseys’ manager Eoin Joy was expressing the satisfaction of a job well done as the Abbeyfeale club advanced to the county senior football quarter-finals off the back of a 2-12 to 0-6 victory under the floodlights of TUS’ Moylish’s grounds on Friday evening.
Two goals in a seven-minute scoring blitz catapulted them out of sight before the quarter-mark was even reached and left their opponents with a mountain to climb. Once the gap on the scoreboard had opened up even further early in the second half, the outcome had already been decided.
Maybe if those goals hadn’t been conceded so early and if there was more at stake, this could well have developed into a more interesting contest with Galtee using an effective midfield to stretch the opposing defence.
But even then, they would have struggled to overcome the differences up front where every Caseys’ forward posed a scoring threat, while the South Limerick team relied heavily on opening up the spaces for Bob Childs to finish.
That said, however, the Fealesiders still laid down a marker as they look ahead to breaking almost two decades without a county title. When they got their ducks in a row, the movement was slick and directed and, even when it broke down, the winners switched seamlessly over to defensive mode to close off the threat of a counter.
Perhaps the absence of jeopardy gave them the freedom to express themselves but, if they can reproduce such a performance in the all-or-nothing contests to come, it will take a very good side to stop them.
The game started off tight enough with movements from both sides being closed off by defenders but that all changed when a high Daniel Daly delivery dropped onto the edge of the square and David Ward outjumped the advancing Danny McGrath to flick the ball to the net.
Seizing the initiative, points from Adrian Enright and Diarmuid Buckley followed quickly and Galtee were suddenly staring at an eight point deficit when Michael Kilbridge on the overlap flicked past McGrath and into the net off Ward’s handpass across the edge of the square.
Pointed frees from Enright and Eliah Riordan followed before the Kilbehenny men got a chance to draw breath and they began to see more of the ball once Tommie Childs established himself in midfield, but movements forward broke on the final pass before Bob Childs got them off the mark.
After Conor McGrath followed up with a score, they had a chance to get back into contact, but Hugh Moloney’s low shot went just wide of the upright and, after an exchange of points between Martin Scannell and Alan Condon’s free, Ward fisted a pair of points over, the second collecting the rebound after McGrath stopped Enright’s goalbound shot, to restore Caseys’ ten-point advantage of 2-7 to 0-3 at the break.
Quick points from Enright and Rory O’Brien extended the Fealesiders’ lead on the restart and, after they held off a number of Galltee attempts at a reply, Enright further relieved any pressure on them by extending the lead to thirteen points before play lost continuity as both sides emptied their benches.
Fifteen scoreless minutes ended when Condon got Galtee Gaels first score of the second period, but that only inspired their opponents to draw a foul for Scannell to convert afree.
Coming up to the final whistle, Bob Childs found two openings to increase the Galtee tally, but the last word was left to Enright two minutes into added time, as he picked on the game’s closing score.
SCORERS: FR CASEYS: David Ward 1-2, Adrian Enright 0-5 (1 free), Michael Kilbridge 1-0, Martin Scannell 0-2 (1 free), Diarmuid Buckley, Eliah Riordan (free), Rory O’Brien 0-1 each; GALTEE GAELS: Bob Childs 0-3, Alan Condon 0-2 (1 free), Conor McGrath 0-1.
FR CASEYS: Shane O’Connell; Tommy O’Keeffe, Sam Quigley, Michael Kilbridge; Tommy O’Keeffe, Fiachra Cotter, Seán Kilbridge, Mark McCarthy; Daniel Daly, Diarmuid Buckley; Rory O’Brien, Dylan Quirke, Martin Scannell, Adrian Enright, David Ward, Eliah Riordan. SUBS: Oisín Woulfe for Eliah Riordan (40 minutes), DJ Quirke for Mark McCarthy (41 minutes), Donagh Kelly for David Ward (46 minutes), Killian Sweeney for Dylan Quirke (53 minutes), John Riordan for Daniel Daly (57 minutes).
GALTEE GAELS: Danny McGrath; Edward Quinn, Eoin Gallahue, Alan Coughlan; Jack Ryan, Maurice O’Sullivan, Declan Moriarty; Tommie Childs, Alan Condon; Hugh Moloney, Bob Childs, Paddy English; Zach McCarthy, Conor McGrath, Seán Casey. SUBS: Éamonn Kelly for Paddy English (39 minutes), Kaelen Bready for Declan Moriarty (41 minutes), Liam Maunsell for Edward Quinn (46 minutes), Cian Ryan for Maurice O’Sullivan (46 minutes), Conor Moriarty for Seán Casey (52 minutes).
REFEREE: Jonathan Hayes (Saint Senan’s).