What a weekend !!
In what is only sinking in now in most peoples minds we have woken up this morning as the 2021 McAleer and Rushe London senior football champions , a titanic battle with Fulham Irish on a day where 6 red cards were shown saw us four point winners to add our second title and our first since 2016 . It was a game that had it all from scores to drama and to come out the right side of it took everything we had .
The first half was a ding dong battle with Fulham just slightly shading things on the scoreboard 0-07 to 0-06 , our scores came from Chris Farley (0-02) , Tom Waters , Marcus Mangan , Willie Brazil and a sublime score from Paul O Farrell But Fulham were finding their dangermen all too often and were able to capitalise .While the game had a bit of niggle in it nothing could have prepared the crowd for what was to happen after referee Gavin Dixon blew for half time , a number of players got involved in a fracas going down the tunnel resulting in a free for all with some subs and spectators also getting involved in ugly scenes , when both teams emerged from the tunnel in the second half the referee showed five red cards , two to us to Tom Waters and Keith Curran and three for Fulham .
The game re started and was very scrappy for the opening seven or eight minutes with a further black card shown to a Fulham player shortly followed by one to Geoff Kingston for us , it was now 11 v 12 on the field , yet another black card for Fulham in the eighth minute left them with ten players on the field for a period and we then began to capitalise , fresh legs brought in with Paudie o Shea on for Kenny and his first touch was to slot over a score followed by another from Farley , up stepped James Moran who was excellent throughout with a monster of a score to put us ahead 0-9 points to 0.-08 and this was followed by the pivotal score of the match when Moran spotted the run of Farley in the hole and he calmly slotted the ball home to put us four points up , still Fulham rallied with two points from frees to cut the deficit to two 1-09 to 0-10 and they were refusing to fall away .Paudie made it a three point game again before Fulham pulled one back from play after we left a goal chance after us at the other side , Chris Farley slotted a super score to lift us three clear but another free from Fulham made it a two point game entering injury time , a red card for sub Marty Hughes saw Fulham down to eleven players to see the game out and by now gaps were appearing all over the pitch , a break way saw Marcus put three between us again before a few simple chances went abegging , Mark Rowland saw one come back off the upright from a fisted effort and this resulted in Fulham pumping two frees on top of our square looking for the goal to take it to a replay , the first was claimed by James Moran under his bar and when we failed to get the next ball another free was given which eventually saw a Fulham shot at goal being cleared off the line by Marcus , the ball found its way to Farley who was fouled out on the line , Moran wasted no time with a quickly taken free to release Scratch who had all the time in the world to pick out Aodhan who fired over the insurance score . The resulting kick out saw the final whistle being blown to massive relief amongst the sizeable Kiernans crowd .
We now qualify for the Connacht quarter final against the winners of Sligo in November , Captain Eoin Walsh paid tribute to all those who made this possible within the club after raising the trophy for only the second time in the clubs history .
Final Score
St Kiernans 1-13..Chris Farley 1-04-Marcus Mangan and Paudie o Shea 0-02 each ,Tom Waters , James Moran , Aodhan Gervin, Willie Brazil and Paul O Farrell 0-1 each
Fulham Irish 0-12
Earlier our reserves fell at the final hurdle in the championship final against Fulham , a spirited first half saw us trail by four at half time but we were right in the game at the second half water break and had chances to be closer , alas the last ten minutes saw Fulham take a few goal chances and they went on to record a flattering 2-13 to 0-08 victory
Scorers
Barry Shanahan 0-03
Chris McGlynn-Chris Byrne -James Callery -Hugh Conlon and Dan Mcandrew 0-1 each .
Our Awards and medals day was a huge success on Saturday with over 150 kids getting medals and awards including our U15 who had earlier qualified for the championship final .
Huge thanks to all who helped in various stalls during the day
HON KIERNANS !!!
