St Patrick's Cup Results
Round 3 - Sunday 24th April 2005

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Saoirse Raring to Go
Ladies’ Football - Clan na Gael 1-4 Saoirse 1-13

Clan na Gael started well in this opening game of the day and they certainly took advantage of some sloppy passing on Saoirse’s part to get a few scores, but Saoirse were in much better form and soon took the lead.

After starting the second half leading by six points, Saoirse began to get into the swing of things and step up a gear, emphasising the point with a goal from Fiona Reynolds, and quickly extending the lead. Clan na Gael were unable to turn the tide despite some impressive play in the mid field from the persistent Eileen Volert and the feisty Olive Ennis who would have undoubtedly scored a lot more than one point had she been within shooting range.

If the first three weeks of the St Patrick’s Cup are anything to go by, the ladies’ football championship is going to be a tightly run race.

Sarsfield's Just Not Good Enough
Mens’ Football - Michael Cusack’s 2-11 Sarsfield's 2-4

A team’s ability to keep the ball in their possession turned out to be a recurring theme of the day. In this case it was Cusack’s who managed to outmaneuver Sarsfield’s by jealously guarding the ball all the way up the field to within shooting range from where even such veterans as Allan Downey were able to take a score. This clinical possession, combined with Sarsfield’s forwards struggling to win the breaking ball, was a recipe for a Cusack’s win that could have been a lot more comprehensive but for some fierce resistance from Colm Brazil, Liam Reidy, and Babysham (who I now know to be Seamus McCorry).

The peninsula / south bay side only trailed by four points at half time, and the second half saw a slight improvement, but the Cusack's were more than able to match it with more of the same nearly indestructible possession. It would have been difficult to see a way out of that one for Sarsfield’s.

See also, streaming video footage.

St Brendan’s Get Some Exercise
Men’s Football - Ulster A 3-16 - St Brendan’s 0-2

In this rather unbalanced match, the Ulster goalkeeper, Austin McKenna, was given about as much work to do as a San Diego weather forecaster in the summertime.

Initially, St Brendan’s were clearly rattled by the Ulster onslaught. Much of the play in this game was characterised by all of the action taking place in the St Brendan’s end of the field with none of their forwards remaining in position. These desperate attempts to slow down the Ulster advance were somewhat successful thanks in part to the never-say-die attitude of Tom Carroll in the middle of the field, but whenever the ball did break in St Brendan’s favour, there were no blue jerseys at the top end of the field to pass it to and possession changed back to Ulster again. Almost every ball that got into the hands of an Ulsterman ended up rebounding back down the field, and their nearly perfect passing kept the ball firmly in their vice-like possession. The only question about what would happen next was whether it would go wide or over the bar.

It was well into the second half when Aidan O’Sullivan finally managed to mark the scoreboard for St Brendan’s during a rare foray into the Ulster half of the field, and he was followed later by fellow Tipperary lad Tom Carroll who got another point. However, the spirited resistance at the bottom of the field did not translate into scores at the top.

St Brendan’s seem to have improved their game and were able to put it up to Ulster better than they would have in the past. If the same standard of play were distributed up the field, the scoreline could well have been a lot less brutal.