White’s Cross qualified for the league final with a semi-final win over Brian Dillons played on Sunday, January 20th. This game, played at Brian Dillons home ground in Montenotte, proved a most entertaining encounter, especially given the ground conditions and the bitterly cold wind that blew up as the game progressed. Brian Dillons were first out of the traps, and raced into an early three point lead, as the Cross lads struggled to find the radar in front of goal. However Donnacha Murnane’s well taken score after 15 minutes steadied the boys-in-green, and all of a sudden the pace of forwards: John McElhinney, Dylan Burke and Bryan O Sullivan began to pay dividends. O Sullivan kicked a gigantic score and Edwin Buckley had no bother slotting over the frees that the Dillons defenders gave away in an effort to stop the galloping forwards.
However, at the opposite end of the field, Brian Dillons had John Horgan and Cillian Brosnan keeping the scoreboard ticking over also, as White’s Cross struggled to cope with Tom Lawrence’s runs from his number six berth, deep at the Cross defence. Indeed it was one of his runs gave Dillons the slenderest of leads at the half-time whistle, as he was dragged down in front of goal for a tap-over free from John Horgan. Dillons led by 0-5 to 0-4, despite playing against the wind in the first thirty.
Finbarr Kiely and his selectors TC Buckley, Paudie Curtin and Con Kelleher juggled the formation around at the half-time interval, including switching James Cooney from full-back out to midfield, with Brendáin Murnane reverting back to corner back and Sean Gorman switching to the number three position. Elsewhere John McElhinney switched with Bryan O Sullivan as the former moved from the wing to centre and Conor Kelleher was introduced at full-forward. All these switches seemed to suit the players involved, and Cooney really complemented the hard-working Kevin Buckley at centre-field. Dillons, using the wind, started pumping the ball long and direct but Gorman and Sean Murnane were up-for the challenge, whilst Brian Murphy thundered into the game at wing-back. Buckley continued to slot over the frees, whilst Cooney converted a wonderful score after Bryan O Sullivan did really well to overturn possession and feed off to his team-mate.
In this tit-for-tat encounter a goal was always going to prove decisive and in this regard Dillons had their chances. There was one occasion in both halves where they had a player in a one-on-one situation with Cross net-minder Billy Sheahan, but on both occasions Sheahan pulled off fine saves. When Dillons equalised nine points a piece and five minutes remaining on the clock, it did look as all the momentum was with the boys-in-blue, as they benefited from the strong wind that was now blowing. However soon after Kelleher over-turned possession 45 metres from the Dillons goal and laid it off to the on-rushing Edwin Buckley who cheekily lobbed over Dillons number one, James Kirby, and into the roof of the net.
From there to the finish it was frantic stuff as Dillons laid siege on the White’s Cross goal but Eoin Murnane, Cormac Manning and others made sure they would not get in for a big score, and when referee Kevin Murphy blew his whistle the score remained 1:9 to 0:9. White’s Cross will meet championship winners Douglas in the league final – this game is fixed for the weekend of February 10th.
Team: Billy Sheahan (Captain); Sean Gorman; James Cooney; Sean Murnane; Cormac Manning; Eoin Murnane; Brian Murphy; Brendáin Murnane; Kevin Buckley; Edwin Buckley; Bryan O Sullivan; Dylan Burke; John McElhinney; Michael Osborne; Donnacha Murnane. Subs: Conor Kelleher for Osborne (30 minutes); Denis O Regan; Seamas O Reilly; Richie Sherlock & Niall Twomey.