Joey's finally get over the line to lift club's first title
St Josephs celebrate after wining the Carlow League Youths Division 1 title.
St. Joseph’s won the club’s first major trophy as they finally got their hands on the Youths Division 1 title. The Tinryland based side could have gotten the trophy last week but were beaten by Hanover to end their unbeaten run but beat nine man Crettyard to pick up the title on Saturday afternoon. The game was moved to the astroturf in St. Pat’s due to the inclement weather conditions over the last few weeks.
To their credit, Crettyard who turned up with just nine players played their hearts out and battled hard for much of the game, not folding and letting their opponents run ragged. They stayed composed and showed a lot of heart and resilience. Had they had 11, they may have pulled off an upset. However, St. Joseph’s opened them up with ease at times, always staying in control.
With four minutes gone, David McDonald found himself through in space but a last second tackle denied him. The captain Shane Gurhy opened the scoring when he raced into the box and just inside launched a volley goalwards leaving Sean Rowan in the goal with no chance of stopping it.
Within the space of six minutes, they had doubled the lead. A Gurhy corner from the right found Alan FitzGerald who fired a shot goalwards with Luke Byrne flicking the ball into the back of the net.
From there you’d have expected the floodgates to open for the Tinryland side but Crettyard held their own and got back into the game. They were awarded a penalty just shy of the half hour mark, and Cormac Brennan made no mistake in putting it away into the bottom left hand corner to give Crettyard hope of a comeback.
Charlie Kehoe went close for Joeys, but could only steer his header narrowly wide on the left, just missing the bottom corner. Joeys came out strongest after the half-time break with the introduction of Mark Buggy, who had been playing with Carlow U20’s earlier in the day, key. With eight minutes gone, they had scored again to restore their two goal lead. An effort from close range was saved before the rebound fell into the path of Buggy who ricocheted the ball into the back of the net.
Once again, Crettyard refused to lie down and Bobby Rowan was on hand in the box and rifled home to reduce the deficit to just one goal again.
Midway through the half, Buggy struck again, getting on to the end of a Gurhy corner from the right and hitting in from the right to restore their two goal lead.
As Crettyard tired, more opportunities fell the way of St. Joseph’s and Walter Webb grabbed the ball and navigated through the defence and 1 on 1 with the Crettyard ‘keeper, he made no mistake in firing to his right to give them a three goal cushion.
Crettyard tried hard and kept pushing right to the end. Cillian Gorman in particular looked threatening. He had a good effort that looked destined for the goal denied by the St. Joseph’s ‘keeper, Ryan Gordon, brother of New Oak player Lee Gordon and Carlow Rugby player, Evan Gordon.
Ryan Gordon, Cathal Purcell, MacDara Deane, David McDonald, Jacob Curran, Seanie McMahon, Walter Webb, Shane Gurhy, Alan Fitzgerald, Charlie Kehoe, Luke Byrne.
Mark Buggy, Cillian McAteer, Thomas Gorman, Brandon Deane, Lennon Pinski, Cein McNamara.
Joe Byrne
