Minor A's beat St. Brigids

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The Minor A Hurlers travelled to Russell Park to meet St Brigids in their second league match this year. The match was deferred until 12 noon because of pitch availability, putting pressure on all those intending to travel to Croke Park for the Dublin double header later in the day. Kilmacud started playing with the hill to their advantage but were slow to get out of the blocks and conceded a number of early frees, which the Dublin forward Paul Winters converted easily for Brigids. While always in command, with the middle diamond of Cian McGabhann, Matthew Geraghty, Ed Campion and Caolan Conway doing a lot of running, Crokes could not ease in to their stride properly. Mark O'Loughlin pointed 4 frees and - while Barry Horan swopped with Caolan at Centre forward - the team got a poor return from scoring opportunities, with the first point from play coming after 18 minutes, still leaving them trailing by a point. Ross McGowan and Neil Gorey at wing and corner forward were kept busy with their men until just before half time, when Conor O'Dwyer benefited from a Barry Horan pass across the front of the goal to rattle the net. This kicked the team on to establish a lead of 4 points at half time of 1-7 to 0-6. 

 

Brigid's came out in the second half blazing with the hill advantage and tested the back line of James Murphy, Robert Murphy and Donnacha O'Murchu, who stood their ground admirably. Cian Gormley - captain for the day - rallied his troops and earned every point scored by Brigids back, to maintain our half time lead. Ronan Horgan and KJ McGowan came on to relieve Ed Campion and Neil Gorey and showed the strength in depth available to the Crokes minor panel. An air of desperation led to Brigid's looking for the elusive goal in the last 10 minutes, but the defense stood strong with some robust challenges being thwarted, which denied any erosion of the final margin, leaving the final score 1-12 to 0-11 points.  While not our best performance, the second win of the league campaign was important to have under the belt and it is always an achievement to come away from Russell Park on the right side of the score line.

Scorers to follow

 

 

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