St Jude’s Kevin Lahiff goes on a solo during the championship clash
Photo by Máirtín Ó Goibín
Jude’s secure Senior 1 hurling status
ST JUDE’S managed to secure their place in Senior 1 Hurling Championship for next year following an extremely close game against St Oliver Plunkett’s/Eoghan Ruadh.
The relegation play-off was held last Saturday at O’Toole Park with Jude’s doing just enough to win by two points with a 0-25 to 0-23 scoreline.
Judes played well throughout the first half of the game and found themselves with an early lead thanks to points from Conor Nolan and Joe McManus.
While plunkett’s attempted to claw their way back Judes’ would go on a scoring spree with Kevin Lahiff, Ciaran McLoughlin, Callum Graham and the aforementioned McManus all firing over the bar for Judes’ with an excellent point from Ross O’Reilly from his own ‘45’ giving them an impressive eight point leads with just over ten minutes gone in the game, leading 0-10 to 0-02.
Judes’ would not be able to keep the same level of dominance throughout the half however and while they did continue to gather scores themselves, Plunkett’s were beginning to get themselves back on the right track and started accumulating points of their own, still despite Plunkett’s now scoring themselves Judes’ still held a healthy lead by half time going into the break with a seven point lead and on the right side of a 0-16 to 0-09 scoreline.
St Jude’s Sean Wiley gets the sliothar away
Photo by Máirtín Ó Goibín
The second half however would see the momentum in the game shift completely as Judes’ found their healthy seven point lead reduced to just two after five consecutive points from Brian McDonnell, Sean Clerkin, Jack O’Shea, Gerard Ryan and Irinel Popa.
The remainder of the half saw Judes do just enough to keep their noses in front with the deficit between the two teams being reduced to a single point on several occasions.
The likes of Conor Nolan and Ross O’ Reilly played a pivotal role in keeping the scoreboard ticking over and ensuring that for every score that Plunkett’s could put up Judes’ were able to respond in kind with their own.
Finally it would be all level in the game after two points from Gerard Ryan brought Plunkett’s on equal footing with extra time looking like a real and likely possibility.
Kevin Lahiff and Conor Nolan would contribute three more scores between them with Nolan’s free in the 64th minute being enough to give St Judes’ victory by a narrow margin.
