Kilnadeema and Leitrim U-21s make history

Kilnadeema/Leitrim        0-12

Loughrea             0-6

KILNADEEMA and Leitrim, who celebrate the 20th anniversary of their re-amalgamation in 2016, fittingly marked the milestone with their first ever U-21 county championship ‘A’ hurling title – albeit, even if it was the decider of the 2015 competition.

Ironically, 1996 was also the year their opponents Loughrea claimed their one and only crown at this grade but any hopes Emmett Mahony’s outfit had of securing a second for the club had begun to diminish by half-time.

It wasn’t that Loughrea had been wholly outclassed in the opening half of what, ultimately, was a war of attrition in desperate weather conditions and a heavy sod on Duggan Park – it did exceptionally well to host the game – but they never looked like they had the guile to get the upperhand on Des Roche’s charges.

The problem for Loughrea was that they lacked penetration up front and indicative of this was the fact that they were only able to tally a single point from play over the entire 60 minutes – that a Jamie Ryan effort on 38 minutes.

In contrast, Kilnadeema/Leitrim fired over four from open play throughout the contest, which, granted, was not a high volume either – underlining just how poor playing conditions were – but it did accurately reflect that the victors had just that little bit more about them.

This had become clearly evident by the interval when Kilnadeema/Leitrim led 0-8 to 0-2, with man of the match Brian Molloy hitting six of those from placed balls. This was, arguably, the crux of Loughrea’s problem.

They sought to bring a physical edge to the contest – the yellow card count was five to two against them while they lost the free count 19-16 – and this cost them frees in areas where it was likely to hurt them with a dead ball expert of Molloy’s quality around.

The Galway forward would nail eight of the 13 frees presented to him – two wide, two short and one assist – which was more than an adequate return in the conditions. Just for the record, he also won four of those frees himself while his contribution from open play was also of a high order.

Read full coverage of final in this week’s Connacht Tribune.