Cromane 1-9, Kilgarvan 0-10

Cromane had to dig deep to rescue a win against a fired-up Kilgarvan side in Cromane on Sunday afternoon.  Trailing by 0-6 to 0-9 with ten minutes left, the home side needed some inspiration to keep their promotion hopes alive.  It duly arrived, with midfielder Liam Walsh at the heart of it.  Firstly, Walsh curled over Cromane’s first point in over 30 minutes of football, to cut the gap to two.  He then proceeded to fetch the resultant kickout and set Sean O’Sullivan off on an amazing run, which ended in a swift pass across the goalmouth for Micheál Shaughnessy to fire to the net.  This put Cromane into a one-point lead (1-7 to 0-9) with seven minutes left.  It was helter-skelter from here on in, as both sides coughed up possession time and again.  Kilgarvan’s sheer will to get something from the game saw them level with a Connie Cremin point with two minutes left in normal time.  Impressive midfielder John Mark Foley then saw a point-blank range shot saved by Cromane goalkeeper Paudie McCarthy.  Cromane breathed a sigh of relief and responded with a length of the field move, setting up substitute Cian O’Keeffe for a point. However, there were still three minutes of injury time to be played and Kilgarvan had a chance to level proceedings, but Foley was wide from a 40 metre free.  Liam Walsh again won a vital kickout and another
fine inter-passing move led to Darren Houlihan cutting inside to kick the insurance score.  
Cromane had started much the better and looked confident, as they stormed into a 0-4 to nil lead after eight minutes, with scores from Sean O’Sullivan (two fine efforts from play), a Darren Houlihan free, and another from play from Emmet Casey.  Kilgarvan slowly got a foothold in the game with Foley and Gearoid Fennessy at midfield giving their opponents plenty to think about.  By half-time, they had closed the gap to one with three Foley points (two frees) and one each from Connie Cremin and Jack O’Brien giving them a lift at the break, down 0-6 to 0-5.

They carried that form into the second half, as they kicked the next four points: two from play from the industrious Christopher Creedon and further efforts from Sean Godfrey and another Foley free.  In between these points, Cromane had chances and two efforts from Liam Walsh and Emmet Casey crashed off the Kilgarvan crossbar.  They weren’t adding any points though and this led to some over-elaboration at times.   Kilgarvan, too, had goal chances with Connie Cremin denied on the double in the Cromane goal with 15 minutes left.  With ten left, it was Kilgarvan who looked best placed to take the two points, but Walsh intervened and Shaughnessy’s goal was the key difference.

Cromane team and scorers: Paudie McCarthy; Liam Teahan, Eoghan Walsh,
Shane Ahern; Brendan Foley, John Michael Foley, Finbar Casey; Liam Walsh
0-1, Darren Houlihan 0-2 (0-1 f); Matt Colborne, Paul Patrick O'Sullivan
0-2 (0-1), Emmet Casey 0-1; Mikey Houlihan, Seán O'Sullivan 0-2, Micheál
Shaughnessy 1-0, Subs: Danny O'Connor for E Walsh 45m, Cian O’Keeffe 0-1
for E Casey 55m .


Kilgarvan scorers:  John Mark Foley 0-4 (0-3 frees), Christopher Creedon and Connie Cremin 0-2 each, Jack O’Brien and Sean Godfrey 0-1 each.