JAFL Final V Valley Rovers – 12/11

 

Valley Rovers 2-15, Shamrocks 1-10

 

Shamrocks season ran out of steam in the league final against Valley Rovers in Ballygarvan. They couldnt reel in the Rovers from the early stages and though they made a pretty good effort at it, ultimately they succumbed to a Valleys team who completed the league double.

 

Valley Rovers raced into a 0-5 to 0-0 lead after only 8 minutes and it looked like Shamrocks would get steamrolled. However, Darragh O’Sullivans point settled the team down after that and in he space of another 8 minutes, the teams had been drawn level 0-5 to 0-5 after further Shamrocks points from Philip Brady and Stephen O’Neill. The next 10 minutes proved to be very tight with neither team registering a score before Rovers tagged on 2 just before halftime to lead at the break by 0-7 to 0-5.

 

Stephen O’Neill and Brian Sweeney had Shamrocks level inside 2 minutes of the second half and it was all to play for. Just after this Valley Rovers struck for a vital goal and in the next 5 minutes tagged on 2 points to lead 1-9 to 0-7 with 20 minutes to play. The last 20 minutes were very competitive and featured a strong effort from Shamrocks to narrow the gap. Brady scored a wonderful individual goal to bring Shamrocks within 2 points, 1-9 to 1-7. On three different occasions from there until the end of normal time, Shamrocks brought the game down to a 2 point game only for Rovers to score a vital point at the other end. The Shamrocks bench was light on this occasion as many players were unavailable for many different reasons and it was evident in the final push for the game – Valleys were able to call on loads of subs while Shamrocks had to play a sub goalie out the field as well as an already subsituted player for the last 10 when the injuries kicked in.

 

Into injury time and Shamrocks needed a goal; however, Valley Rovers went 4 up then finished off the game when a shot for goal ricocheted off a Shamrocks defender into the corner forwards grateful hands on the edge of the square and he rounded Fergus O’Neill before finishing off the season with a tap in.

 

Its been a long and fruitful season all round and the club would like to thank all the players and management for a great adventure.

 

Team: F. O’Neill, J. Tuohy, S, Hurley, S. Kidney, D. Andrews, B. Mulqueen, M. Hitchmough, M. Jordan, A. McCarthy, D. Scriven, P. Brady, A. O’Grady, S. O’Neill, B. Sweeney, D. O’Sullivan. Subs – D. O’Neill, J. Wilson, C. Corkery

 

 

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