U21A Semi Final Victory for Crokes!

Crokes withstand strong 2nd half fightback by St Judes to reach Final

Match Report added!!

After a number of false starts we finally got to play the U21A Championship semi final against St Jude’s on Sunday.  Due to the recent inclement weather the match was switched to the Astro pitch in Bray Emmets and we would like to thank John Henderson for facilitating this match at short notice.

Crokes played with the a very strong wind but it took us a while to learn how to work with it and in the meantime Jude’s scored the first point of the day. We retaliated with points from Caolan and Alex before starting to push ahead with further points form Oisin Ken and Tom. Jude’s came back at us and after 20 minutes we were 6 points to 4 ahead. From there to the break we dominated with the half back line to the fore especially Rob and Jamie. We put over a number of points from amongst others, Dillon and Cian MacGabhann with a super point from 90 metres. The Jude’s goalie made two fine saves to deny Oisin goals leaving the score at half time  Kilmacud Crokes 0 12 St Jude’s 0 4.

We knew the second half would be a battle and so it proved. Jude’s scored the first two points to cut our lead but Oisin then pounced for a goal from a rebound after yet another great save from the Jude’s keeper to stretch our lead. Jude’s kept chipping away at our lead with fine points from out the field but when they came raiding for goals our defence marshalled by Sean, Enda, Emmet and James stood firm and repelled all efforts.  We continued to fight and great work by Matthew & Ciaran set up Barry Horan for a fine point from the sideline into the wind. Jude’s got the score back to two points deep into injury time and came looking for a goal but Donncha collected a high ball and it was worked out to our hard working captain Jude who was yet again fouled allowing Caolan tap over the free to leave 3 points between the teams at the final whistle. Final score Crokes 1 15 St Jude’s 0 15.

Credit is due to all our panel members who have trained extremely hard since late November for this match.

Scorers were: Oisin O'Rourke  1-01, Caolan Conway 0-04 (2f), Ken Kelly 0-03 (1f) Alex Pilkington & Cian MacGabhann 0-02 each, Tom Clarke, Barry Horan and Dillon Mulligan 0-01 each