St Jude’s come up short in senior c’ship

ST JUDES would come up short in a closely contested tie against Clontarf at O’Toole Park on Saturday afternoon.

The two sides were battling it out for a spot in the quarter-finals of the championship and Jude’s offered up a stellar performance. Darragh Rooney presented a major attacking threat for the southside team scoring 0-8 by the end of the game and with Kevin Lahiff scoring a goal in the last 15 minutes to truly keep the pressure on Clontarf.

Ultimately though it would not be enough to secure the win and with both sides finishing the group stage on three points, winning one of their three games, Clontarf will be the ones to progress possessing superior points difference to St Judes.

The first half was characterised by a cagey opening few minutes, though Clontarf always looked to be a dangerous threat in the middle of the pitch due to the presence of intercounty star Jack McCaffrey who was the architect of many Clontarf attacks.

Jude’s would face adversity early on as Eoghan Costello found himself sin binned just over ten minutes into the game.

Charlie Meehan and Luke O’Boyle would take advantage and fire over a pair of points to give Clontarf the lead.

Judes would do well to limit the damage however and following the return of Costello to the pitch they enjoyed a purple patch where Darragh Rooney and Luke Murphy fired home over the bar to reduce Clontarf’s lead to just two points at half time with the scoreline reading 0-7 to 0-5.

Judes would start off the second half in a similar vein and refused to allow Clontarf to build upon their lead, heading into the final 20 minutes of the fixture just a single point separated the teams as the game seemed like it was going to go down to the wire.

Clontarf would be handed a huge boost in the final 20 minutes though, Luke O’Boyle finding the back of the net after being their most threatening player throughout the game. Kieron McKeon and Senan Ryan extended their lead to six points.

Judes would be offered a sort of lifeline in the last ten minutes as Kevin Lahiff scored a goal of his own but the dismissal of Sean Kavanagh dealt too big of a blow to come back from despite the heroics of Darragh Rooney and former Dublin star Kevin McManamon pushing to get them over the line.

A close game, the final score would read 1-15 to 1-11 to Clontarf, ushering the northside team to a quarter final against All-Ireland Champions Cuala while Jude’s will be forced to try their hand again next year.