Accurate Geraghty holds his nerve in landing the winner

CASTLEGAR 0-16

CRAUGHWELL 0-15

DAVID CONNORS AT KENNY PARK

IT may have been the end of October but the sizeable crowd who turned up to witness this Junior A semi-final were treated to a game of high quality and intense drama to go along with the perfect weather conditions usually only associated with summer hurling in the county.

Throughout this game, the sides were level an incredible seven times, but remarkably Craughwell never gained the lead. Castlegar just kept edging ahead any time parity was restored and Craughwell never developed a chance to push on and truly take control of the semi-final.

In the end, it all came down to a battle of the free-takers with Damien Geraghty landing a 65 in the last minute of normal time to give Castlegar the lead by the slenderest of margins. This score would prove to be the difference.

Craughwell’s head marksman on the day, Brian Dolan, did have a chance to level the match, but he narrowly missed a free in injury-time. It would be unfair however to blame Dolan, whose accuracy throughout was one of the main reasons his Craughwell side were within touching distance. He ended the game with ten points which amounted to two-thirds of his team’s tally for the day.

Castlegar were probably the better side on Sunday and on another day they could have been well out of sight. They shot 13 wides over the course of the hour in comparison to the opposition’s six and seemed more capable of creating genuine scoring opportunities than their counterparts overall.

It took a mere eight seconds for Castlegar to open their account and it set the tone for what was a blistering opening period, with six points scored within the opening four minutes.

It was their hero Geraghty that opening the scoring from play for Castlegar, before Brian Dolan responded instantly with a free for his side. Paul Healy shot a point for the city side after some neat link-up play with James Murphy. Castlegar’s Brian Fahy then added a couple of points either side of a Dolan free in an opening period of pulsating action.

Dolan brought his side back level by scoring two frees before Geraghty landed a free of his own to give ‘Cashel’ a one point advantage at the midway juncture of the opening half.

The powerful Adam Mooney and the energetic David Farrell traded points for their respective outfits. Following this, Craughwell’s Niall Donohue drove directly at the Castlegar rearguard and slotted the ball between the posts to level the game once again.

Geraghty then won himself a free, which he confidently dispatched but it was cancelled out moments later by Craughwell midfielder Patrick Monaghan with a point from distance. Adam Mooney then slotted over his second score of the day after some excellent interchange play between Geraghty and Joe Healy.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.