Stroll in the park for Naas as they ease into another SHC final
Naas' Simon Leacy clears under pressure from Éire Óg Corra Choill's Conor Sullivan
Naas strolled into yet another UPMC Senior Hurling Championship final with a facile 38-point drubbing of ten-times winners Éire Óg Corra Choill at a sparsely-attended Cedral St Conleth’s Park on Sunday.
How do you stop this Naas juggernaut as it relentlessly rolls towards an eighth successive Kildare title? Éire Óg manager Pa Freeman elected for the “Jim McGuinness 2011” model with fourteen men behind the ball and Liam Dempsey chosen to plough a lone and lonely furrow at full-forward with the imperious Rian Boran for company along with a spare defender or two.
They conceded the puck-outs and hoped that packing the defence in a so-called “low block” would at least limit the damage. Playing with the wind. In a knock-out county semi-final. That says everything about the behemoth that Naas has become in the county, whatever you might think of Freeman’s approach to the occasion.
Needless to report, it didn’t work. Naas scored pretty much at will with ten points on the board inside the opening seventeen minutes. Éire Óg’s sole response at that point was a free from Dempsey and it would be ten minutes from the end by the time they scored.
What Freeman wouldn’t have counted on was Donnchadh Fitzpatrick getting sent off on seventeen minutes for a wild swipe on Daire Guerin. Or former county man Cormac Byrne hobbling off inside two minutes. Or goalkeeper Daniel Gleeson joining him in sick bay just before half-time with Dempsey having to leave his thankless task in attack to take on another minding the nets.
The only small consolation for the Caragh/Prosperous men in the opening 25 minutes was that they hadn’t conceded a goal, even if they were 0-13 to 0-1 behind. Naas put that statistic to rights in the run-up to half-time as they added 2-4 without reply.
First, the imperious, unmarkable James Burke, who finished with 1-7 from play, got a deft stick to Daire Guerin’s point attempt as it fell short, the ball squirming past Gleeson into the bottom right corner. Then, with the half in the fifth minute of injury time, it was Dempsey picking the ball out of the net from Charlie Sheridan’s low shot after the Naas corner-forward emerged with the ball from a ruck.
That made it 2-17 to 0-1 at half-time.
Éire Óg were out well before Naas for the second half. After all, what could Freeman have said to his troops at the interval? If it had been a damage limitation exercise at the start it was a case of playing for some pride in the second.
Naas showed no mercy with Éire Óg managing to get out of their own half on only two occasions in the opening twenty minutes of the second period. Substitute Simon Connolly landed a free from one of those excursions.
At the other end Naas remained relentless. In that same period, they peppered the town goal with twenty shots, registering a further 2-10. Within the opening minute Burke grabbed Evan O’Brian’s delivery and offloaded for to-scorer Jack Sheridan, who finished with 1-12, to lash the third goal to the roof of Dempsey’s net. It took thirteen minutes for the fourth to arrive, deservedly so for the lively Oisín O’Neill with a low strike.
Naas finally let the foot off the gas a little in the final ten minutes, and Jack Higgins eventually landed Éire Óg’s first score from play on fifty minutes, with Conor Sullivan, Paul Dolan (free) and Higgins again also raising white flags before referee Matthew Redmond put them out of their misery.
Cormac Gallagher; Liam O’Reilly, Rian Boran, Evan O’Brian 0-1; Daire Guerin, Conan Boran 0-1, Harry Carroll 0-2; Peter O’Donoghue 0-3, Simon Leacy; Oisín O’Neill 1-2, Cathal Dowling, Brian Byrne 0-2; Charlie Sheridan 1-2, James Burke 1-7, Jack Sheridan 1-12 (8fs,1’65). Subs: Ross Kelly for O’Reilly and Rossa Stapleton for Dowling both HT, Kevin Whelan for C Sheridan 40, Darrach Mac Donncha for Guerin 49, Mac Dara Moore for Byrne 53.
Daniel Gleeson; Cormac Byrne, Niall Cramer, Rian Cramer; Daniel Boyle, Paul Dolan 0-1 (f), Conor Sullivan 0-1; Jack Higgins 0-2, Daniel Murray; Liam Dempsey 0-1 (f), Michael Clohessy, Donnchadh Fitzpatrick; Conor Kielty, Seán O’Neill, Cian O’Reilly. Subs: Fionán Manders for Byrne 2, Simon Connolly 0-1 for Gleeson 30+1, Tim Henessy for Manders 43, Shane Malone for Kielty 58.
Matthew Redmond.
