Kilcullen see off Sarsfields to reach first ever Kildare LGFA senior final
Kilcullen celebrate after beating Sarsfields to reach the club's first ever senior county final
Ten years almost to the day since winning their first ever adult title, Kilcullen turned in a superb performance to beat Sarsfields in their own back yard to qualify for the club’s first ever senior county final.
Jayne Peacocke and Nanci Murphy played in that Junior ‘B’ Final win against Celbridge in early September in 2016 and they were two of the stars here in a superb team display.
Peacocke has been the team’s scorer-in-chief for a decade, and more, and once again she was top scorer as she displayed unerring accuracy off her superb left foot. As well as her scores, Peacocke led by example and covered a huge amount of ground, covering in defence when needed but always available to link up much of her team's attacking play.
Equally as important as the scores that won the game was the performance of Murphy, alongside her inter-county team-mate Molly Aspell, in midfield. Kildare would be happy taking on the best teams in the country in the All-Ireland Championship with that duo in their engine room and they both carried on the form they showed in a Lilywhite jersey earlier in the year into club action.
With Aspell, Murphy and Peacocke at their core, and Molly O'Loughlin and Ellen Coleman anchoring the defence, Kilcullen possessed a formidable spine. They had plenty of pace around the fringes of that as well, especially through left-half-forward Mae Cowper-Gray, who was another to have a brilliant game.
Kilcullen had already enjoyed a good start to the game by the time that Amy Tyrrell beat U16 All-Ireland winning goalkeeper Sadie Burke in the tenth minute with the first goal of the game, making the score 1-2 to 0-2.
Sarsfields, managed by former Kildare goalkeeper Shane McCormack alongside Liam McGovern, played some of their best football of the game in response to that setback.
Freya Healy converted two frees, but Kilcullen replied with a pair of Peacocke points.
Aisling Irhue then got through for a point but the longer the half went on, the more that Aspell and Murphy began to dominate around the middle.
Aoife Griffith and Caoimhe Egan added points to push Kilcullen four points ahead. The mounting frustration in the Sarsfields team boiled over when one of their star players, Freya Healy, was sinbinned for the last ten minutes of the half after picking up a yellow card for dissent to referee Owen Murphy.
Kilcullen utilised their extra player to keep the ball for a sustained period and their patient build-up ended with a point from Murphy. From the kick out, Kilcullen earned another free and Peacocke made no mistake.
It began to feel very much like it was going to be Kilcullen’s evening when they got in for their second goal in the 26th minute. A surging run by Aspell opened up the Sarsfields defence and she played the right pass to find Peacocke, who made no mistake in firing past Burke.
Sarsfields are nothing if not gutsy and they came back to score two of the last three points before the break through frees from Erin Healy, to leave the score at 2-9 to 0-7 at the change of ends.
The bit of a breeze that was blowing was behind Sarsfields for the second half and they knew they needed a big start after the restart but they couldn’t find that against a very well-organised Kilcullen team.
Their manager, Ed Burke, had a superb year when leading Carlow to 17 wins in 18 games before losing an All-Ireland Junior final in the last 15 seconds and he has his side very well-drilled.
Sarsfields brought Orlagh Judge into the action to try and kickstart their comeback, and she kicked a point within a point of her introduction, but instructions were quickly shouted from the sideline as Kilcullen reshuffled their defence to try nullify her impact.
Kilcullen also got a great impact off their bench. Ellie O’Toole was only on the field for three minutes when Tyrrell cleverly knocked Murphy’s crossfield pass into her path. Once again, Burke in the Sarsfields was given no chance with a well placed finish and O’Toole wheeled away after making the score 3-12 to 0-11.
Peacocke scored her last point from a free and turned provider with a defence splitting pass that found Egan and her shot was only inches over the crossbar.
Both sides picked up yellow cards in the last five minutes. Judge was sent to the sinbin for a clumsy challenge on Murphy in the 55th minute, and then Murphy herself was sent to the line a couple of minutes later after she was slightly late for a tackle on Irhue.
Sarsfields kept pushing until the end and twice hit the woodwork in injury-time. Rebecca Kavanagh’s shot clipped the bar on the way over for the last score of the game and even later than that, Siofra Galvin hit the underside of the bar with a looping shot.
However, even if both those shots had hit the net it was still unlikely that Sarsfields would have been able to salvage the game such was the size of the lead that Kilcullen had built up.
Kilcullen have been of the real success stories of Kildare LGFA in the way that they have grown over the last decade and they can now look forward to their first senior final.
They will undoubtedly be underdogs, however, when they take on Eadestown on Friday 2 October at Cedral St Conleths Park. In the other semi-final, they defeat county champions St Laurence’s by 0-18 to 1-4. That was a repeat of last year’s final when Laurence’s thwarted Eadestown’s attempts to win a fifth successive title and the Sky Blues are obviously keen to win back their crown.
At Intermediate level, Naas will meet Cappagh in the final after they beat Raheens and Leixlip respectively.
The Naas Racecourse Junior ‘A’ Final will be contested between Sallins and Milltown after the came past Athy and Two Mile House in their semi-finals.
Roisin Browne; Bróna Dooley, Ellen Coleman, Aidin Gordon, Olivia Monaghan, Holly O’Loughlin, Niamh Liston 0-1; Molly Aspell, Nanci Murphy 0-1; Hannah Breen, Aoife Griffith 0-3, Mae Cowper-Gray, Jayne Peacocke 1-6 (5fs), Caoimhe Egan 0-3, Amy Tyrrell 1-0. Subs: Ellie O’Toole 1-0 for Gordon, 47; Ava Cronin for Breen, 47.
Sadie Burke; Ellie Kendrick, Lily O’Connor, Muireann O’Loughlin, Elaine Keogh, Anna Lawless, Shauna Kendrick; Siofra Galvin 0-1, Aisling Irhue 0-1; Molly Cassidy, Erin Healy 0-2fs, Jessica McNulty, Ali Kaye, Freya Healy 0-6 (5fs), Ciara Price 0-1. Subs: Gemma Harnett, Orlagh Judge 0-1 for Kaye, 37; Laura Jane Kaye for S Kendrick, 50; Grace Moutaine for McNulty, 52; Rebecca Kavanagh 0-1 for Cassidy, 58.
Owen Murphy.
