Ballyboden St Enda’s celebrate their Senior 1 Football Championship win over Na Fianna in Parnell Park on Saturday Photos by John Kirwan
Boden delight
BALLYBODEN St Endas have won their fifth Dublin Senior 1 Football championship following victory over Na Fianna in Parnell Park last Saturday night.
The two sides had met in their opening game of the championship at the beginning of August where Ballyboden dominated, winning the game by a sizable margin.
This match however followed a different script and the game would be won by just four points with a scoreline of 1-16 to 1-12.
It would be the last quarter of an hour that would prove to be the most decisive of the game as the two teams looked to be fairly level after the first forty minutes, tied at nine points apiece after 43 minutes.
Boden would score 1-4 without response between the 48th and 61st minutes to build themselves a lead that they would hold onto to win their first title since 2019.
Cein D’Arcy’s goal in the 53 minute provided them a huge level of cushion which left them seven points ahead at one stage.
Colm Basquel was another player for Boden who played a crucial role in the game. He scored two points and won five frees across the match with leading scorer Daire Sweeney was able to capitalise on, scoring 0-8 on the day. Seven of which came from dead balls.
Sweeney had attracted plenty of attention heading into the final after an excellent return of 2-8 against Cuala.
Ballyboden’s James Madden battles for possession during the Senior Championship final in Parnell Park on Saturday
He managed five scores by half time but also fell victim to wides as conditions were less than ideal with heavy wind and rain affecting his accuracy.
Boden now will advance to a Leinster club quarter final tie against the Wexford representatives on the 16th of November.
They have won the Leinster title twice before in 2015 and 2019.
“We believed right from the start that we could win this championship. 100%.
‘When you get to the latter stages of any championship you are going to come up against better opposition. You are going to come up against problems and players who are of a level that is intercounty and top coaches.”
“To be honest the boys make it easy. They’re such good fellas, the character, the leadership it all came together really and it was evident from the start, the belief in the group that we could do something.
‘We felt we hadn’t really kicked on from 19 [2019 last championship win] we’ve had a few disappointing defeats over the years.
‘The belief in the group was there to get this over the line.”
“We’ll take a good look at the two semi finals down in Wexford and we’ll be watching those.
‘The wexford final will be two weeks later so we’ll get down and watch that so we will get two good looks at the opposition but no team goes down to Wexford Park and comes out with an easy win.
We are going to be up against it down there and we need to be on it. We’re going to have to train really really hard and refocus the group after a couple days of enjoying the championship win.”
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