Tracey's late goal sends Fenagh to IFC final
Action from this evening's Intermediate Championship semi-final between Fenagh and Grange Photo: Pat Ahern
A late Jack Tracey goal clinched victory for Fenagh in this Talbot Hotel Intermediate Football Championship semi-final at Netwatch Cullen Park on Saturday. Grange looked all over winners when leading by six points after 21 minutes. They had dominated with former intercounty player, John Murphy, pulling the strings. In that time he had scored 1-1 and centre-forward, Patrick Hickey, landed a point from play and was on target with two frees.
The Grange goal came when Murphy executed a one-two with Ned Pender and the full-forward gave Pat Butler no chance.
Fenagh finally got going and they attacked Grange at will. Padraig Hynes converted three frees and Cormac Lomax also went for goal from a 13 metre but the ball whizzed over the crossbar. Jack Treacy’s second of two points left Fenagh very much in touch when trailing 1-5 to 0-6 at the interval.
It took the eventual winners time to break down their opponents defence with Hynes scoring three points while Mark Dermody also raised a white flag.
Just when it looked as if Fenagh had built momentum to go on and win, they were rocked as Grange hit back with a point from James Hickey and three from Ned Pender to go ahead once more.
The winning Fenagh score came when Treacy took possession on the edge of the big square. He had it all to do but he wormed his way inside the defence and found the bottom left hand corner of the net. Fenagh still had to defend for over five minutes of injury time and they did so with effect to book their place in the decider.
P Hynes 0-7 (4fs), J Tracey 1-3 , M Dermody, C Lomax 0-1each
J Murphy 1-2 (1f), N Pender 0-3, P Hickey 0-3 (2fs), M Kelly, J Hickey 0-1 each.
Pat Butler; Darragh Byrne, Jamie McCabe, Mark Dermody; Eoin McDonagh, Dion Wall, Padraig O’Brien; Keagan Bradley, Sean Murphy; Ciaran Whelan, Colin Byrne, Padraig Hynes; Jack Tracey, Adam Smyth, Cormac Lomax. Subs: Cormac Nolan for Murphy (h/t), Josh Kearney for Smyth (35), Eric English for Wall (60).
Seamus Hegarty; John Doyle, Diarmaid Burrows, Shane Byrne; Tom Dillon, Cillian Murphy, James Hickey; Cathal Bailey, Henry Hegarty; Vijay Egharevba, Patrick Hickey, Ned Pender; Aidan Burrows, John Murphy, Martin Kelly. Subs: Shane Cormican for A Burrows (43), Tom Hughes for Kelly (43), Noah Mulligan for D Burrows (49), Alan Fleming for Hegarty (51), Kieran Pender for Mulligan (63).
Sean McCormack (O’Hanrahans).
