Castleknock vs. Raheny- Senior Hurling Off To The Perfect Start
16 Mar 2015

Castleknock 1-10 v Raheny 0-10

A bit of history was made on Sunday morning when Castleknock made the trip to St. Anne’s Park to play their first ever Senior Hurling League game. It was a perfect spring morning and despite a few notable absentees due to injury and intercounty duty, a strong squad of 24 travelled. Promotion was gained last year under the guidance of Humphrey Kelleher, Kevin McCambridge, Neil Kedward and Mick Geraghty and this squad has shown no intention to make up the numbers in their first year in Senior hurling. Training has been good and all members of the panel have shown a willingness to step up their preparation and performance to meet the required standards of a higher division.

The game started at a frantic pace and it fell to the youthful wrists of Luke Whelan to make history and register the first score. The defence stood tall with Ross Mullins and Paul Burke particularly steady and calm in the full back line. Mr Reliability Declan Tobin played a captain’s part and was his usual composed self. The midfield engine room was driven by the strong running of Shane Boland and the dynamic work of Conal Purcell. With this platform the Dublin 15 side were creating chances, Colum Breslin in particular was giving his man a torrid time but perhaps due to limited training time on grass we were quite profligate in front of the posts and couldn’t register our dominance on the score board.

Raheny were far more economical with their chances and took some really good scores from distance with the aid of a slight breeze in to the. Their goalkeeper performed admirably to spread himself and save a goal after Colum Breslin broke inside the cover. Kieran Duggan was getting through a pile of ball on the 50 and was ably assisted on either side by some strong fielding from Niall O’Callaghan and Jamie Tunney. Still at the short whistle, the home side led 0-8 to 0-5.

On the resumption Castleknock brought more structure and design to their play and made a breakthrough when half-time substitute Fintan Murray broke through to dispatch the ball to the corner with aplomb. The game took another swing then with the dismissal of a Raheny player for a second yellow card. As is often the case, this brought a certain amount of loose play and Raheny clocked up another few scores. Having weathered that patch however Castleknock again asserted control around the middle and began to stretch the Raheny defence. The introduction of Conor Prunty brought a bit of solidity to the back line in front of a typically assured Colin Lynch and Dara McKiernan and Shane Coffey arrived to the forward division to replace tired legs. The visitors ran out deserving winners on a scoreline of 1-10 to -0-10.

Overall, it was a good introduction to the performance required at this level. It will serve as an excellent experience to the many young players getting their first taste of adult hurling at this level. Raheny are a very capable outfit and they may justifiably feel unlucky not to take something from a very sporting game which was refereed consistently and sensibly throughout. It was marvellous to see the support that travelled, especially the younger club members who got to see their own local heroes. Hopefully it’ll whet their appetite to play at this level in the not-too-distant future. Our next outing will be the arrival of Parnells to Somerton on Sunday 29 March at 10.30am, it’d be great to have a strong home support.

The management would also like to acknowledge the assistance of John Griffin, Padraig Purcell and Kevin McCambridge with umpiring and linesman duties.

Colin Lynch, Declan Tobin (Capt.) Ross Mullins, Paul Bourke, Ian Cleary, Joey O’Callaghan, Jack King, Conal Purcell, Shane Boland, Niall O’Callaghan, Kieran Duggan, Jamie Tunney, Colum Breslin, Luke Whelan, Andrew Hughes, Fintan Murray for Hughes, Conor Prunty for Cleary, Dara McKiernan for Colum Breslin, Shane Coffey for Duggan, Brian Dunne, Dara McCormack, Brian Hughes, Liam Quinn,