Leinster Special JHC- Castleknock v Mountmellick
Leinster Special JHC- Castleknock v Mountmellick
27 Nov 2013
Somerton
Castleknock 2-15 v Mountmellick 1-7
Last Sunday, the Adult Hurlers of Castleknock rounded off their most successful year ever with a win in the Leinster Special JHC Final, beating Mountmellick of Laois in a great final in Somerton Park.
The game started relatively slowly, with the massive crowd in attendance struggling to get into the game. But with good scores from the likes of Ronan Lynch, Cian O’Dulaing, Jamie Tunney and Shane Boland, Castleknock built a four-point lead of 0-5 to 0-1.
Mountmellick weren’t about to drift away from the game that early though, and an excellent goal from the full forward, as well as another point, brought the teams level. The scoring then became more frequent as both teams grew into the game, and with Tunney and Boland proving particularly effectively for the home side, and the first half ended on a score line of 0-9 to 1-4 in favour of Castleknock, but with the teams still quite evenly matched.
This all changed early in the second half however, when Dermot Curran got a touch on a long ball into the square from O’Dulaing, and helped it into the net, to put a bit of daylight between the teams. The introduction of Brian Hughes and Niall O’Callaghan early in the second half also helped Castleknock to assert their dominance on the game, and they, along with Curran, put the game almost out of reach of the Laois men with some very good scores. The full back line for Castleknock also started to come out on top of their individual battles, with Ed Forrest and Declan Tobin mopping up lot of ball throughout the second half.
Hughes then scored a brilliant individual goal in stoppage time, and tagged on another point, to put a nice shine on the scoreboard for the Castleknock men, although it was probably an unfair reflection of Mountmellick, who battled hard throughout.
Castleknock Team: B Dunne; D Tobin, E Forrest, C Prunty; R O’Briain, C Corcoran, J King; T Quinn, S Boland; J Tunney, R Lynch, P Hamill; C O’Dulaing, C O’Brien, D Curran. Subs: N O’Callaghan for O’Brien (h-t), B Hughes for Hamill (36), D Cormican for Tunney (54), I Cleary for Quinn (56), P Mulvehill for O Dulaing (59).