Kilmichael 6-10, Shamrocks 5-8
Kilmichael made the long trip to Shanbally a winning one with a 5 point win over a largely out of sorts Shamrocks on a wet and windy Monday evening. They fully deserved their path into the final. The lack of a competitive quarter final seemed to affect the Shamrocks lads for long spells as their first touch let the lads down on numeous occasions. The Kilmichael team featured two very good players at midfield and full forward and the Shamrocks players were not really able to mix it physically with them as they did most if not all of the Kilmichael scoring.
Kilmichael played with the strong breeze in the first half and after a slow start when thery led 1-3 to 1-1, they went on a scoring spree to put daylight between the teams, 3-6 to 1-2 at HT. Killian Murphy had scored the Shamrocks goal after a fine team move. However, the 10 point half time defecit was going to be tough to claw back even with the wind as the lack of hurling from some Shamrocks players was very evident.
Shamrocks tried hard to reduce the HT defecit but every time they scored a goal at one end, Kilmichael were able to respond at the other end, into the wind and this was a major factor in their win. Shamrocks got as close as 3 points down with time almost up, they actually finished very strong but ultimately ran out of time. Cormac Scriven was by far Shamrocks best player as he got stuck in and cleared a load of ball from all over the backline.
Panel: J. Lynam, C. Scriven, D. Barry, J. O’Keeffe, N. Hayes, M. Hitchmough, D. Andrews, C. Hayes, A. O’Grady, D. O’Sullivan, K. Murphy, R. Meighan, S. Flavin.
