Kavanagh grabs vital Shels goal
Wednesday July 28 2010
A LATE Ronan Kavanagh goal helped Shelmaliers to edge past Rapparees and into the semi-final of the Captain Michael Baker Under-21 hurling Premier championship at Ferns on Monday of last week.
With the Over the Water side clinging to a two-point lead in injury time, Kavanagh clawed in a long Brian Tobin pass before racing away from John Ryan and firing low into the right corner of Davy Doyle's net.
Until the goal, the game was very much in the balance. Neither side ever got more than three points ahead but crucially Rapparees could never level the scores towards the end of the second-half, despite being within one on a few occasions.
There was very little between the teams in terms of quality, with just a bit of extra pace in the Shelmaliers midfield and half-forward lines creating enough problems to prove the difference.
Playing with what breeze there was, blowing into the village end, Rapparees edged into an early two-point lead, with Tommy Foley and Joe Cullen scoring. Shane Griffith and Aaron Ronan missed good goal chances for their respective sides before the Shels got a foothold and moved 0-5 to 0-3 ahead after 20 minutes.
As the game went to and fro, the Enniscorthy side regained the lead late in the half, only for Joe Kelly to slot his fourth point of the opening period - sending the sides in deadlocked at 0-7 apiece.
Kevin O'Connor and Tommy Foley quickly exchanged minors, but that would be the last time the Rapps were level as Kelly and Shane Griffith shot Shelmaliers three points ahead eleven minutes into the second-half.
Two Foley frees sandwiched a Feargal Hynes effort as Rapparees broke a 12-minute spell without a score and Barry Nolan pulled them within one in the 48th minute. The cushion Kelly provided two minutes later didn't last long as Foley replied with his seventh free to set up a tense final few minutes.
Griffith again struck, his second of the game, from 50 metres out in the centre of the field to give the Hollymountbased side a little wiggle room and, despite pressure leading up to injury time, Rapparees couldn't make the breakthrough - perhaps guilty of going for goals when points would have sufficed - and Kavanagh wrapped it up in injury time to send the holders into the final four.
- DEAN GOODISON in Ferns
