You are Here: Home>Match Reports>2004

Printer Friendly Version of this Page   Contact Us   SiteMap

Feile Hurlers Group Stages - Wed, 12 May 2004

Brigids come close in Div 1 Feile Thriller.

In glorious sunshine at Russell Park last weekend the top tier of Under 14 hurling in Dublin fought it out for a place in the Feile Final on Sunday evening. St Brigid?s St Vincents; Ballyboden St Enda?s and Cuala played each other in a round robin with 2 of the four going forward to the Semi finals to meet the best of Kilmacud Crokes, Ballinteer St johns, Erins Isle and Na Fianna.who played their group matches at silverpark.

Ultimately St Brigid? and Ballyboden made it through to the final after some fine displays of hurling by both teams. These two teams have already met twice this year and on both occasions the teams played out exciting draws and so the stage was set for an epic final in Parnell Park.

The prize on offer was the honour of representing Dublin at the National Feile to be held next month in Westmeath and Kildare. Dublin, along with Cork sends two representatives to the Nationals with both the winners and the runners up from the Dublin final competing in Division 1 against the cream of Under 14 hurling teams from all over Ireland.

This St Brigid?s team, all of whom live locally have been together since they were 8 and 9 and most of them began hurling at the Nursery in Beechpark Avenue. Their Mentors Paddy Winters and Liam Plunkett are both hurling fanatics and have worked hard through the years to pass on their skills to these young players. These skills in abundance were on show over the weekend.

Group Match 1

St Brigid?s   1-7 St Vincent?s   2-3

All the best laid plans of Brigid?s were thrown quickly out the window when after 5 minutes of this match they found themselves training by 2 goals to nothing. However this team is made of strong stuff and with some ?gentle? encouragement from their mentors the fightback began. Points from Jamie Winters and Conor Woodgate steadied the nerves and gradually Brigid?s clawed their way back into the match. though it took a brilliant goal from Philip Carroll to bring them neck and neck. In the 2^nd half Vincent?s were kept virtually scoreless and Brigid?s ran out winners by the slimmest of margins.

Group Match 2

St Brigid?s 2-5 Cuala 1 ? 7

This match started at a slower pace than the earlier encounter and took a while to get going. A cracking goal by Daire Plunkett from a Dillon Casey pass helped St Brigid?s to a 1-3 to 2 point lead at half time. In the second Half a Cuala goal was quickly followed by one for Philip Carroll for Brigid?s. After this St Brigid?s lost their way a little and Cuala scored 3 points without reply to bring them within one point of St Brigid?s when the final whistle brought welcome relief to the large crowd of Brigid?s supporters who enjoyed the sunshine in Russell Park.

Group Match 3

St Brigid?s 4-4   Ballyboden 4-4

This group stage encounter between the two best teams in Dublin at this age group gave an early indicator of what was to happen later in the final. Both teams had already qualified for the semi finals at this stage and one might have expected them to take things a little easy. However, an explosive start by St Brigids saw them scoring 3 goals (Philip Carroll, Daire Plunkett x 2) in the first five minutes to lead briefly by 3-0 to 1 the widest margin there had ever been between these two closely matched teams.

Ballyboden recovered quickly however, and scored 3 goals in response so that  at half time the scores were level at 4 ?0 for Brigid?s to 3-3 for Ballyboden. The second half was a helter skelter affair with Daire Plunkett scoring a 3^rd magnificent goal and ending the match with a personal tally of 3-3. The closing exchanges were hectic and the standard of hurling extremely high. Brigid?s almost sneaked a win but were satisfied with the draw which saw them finish runners up in the group to Ballyboden on Score difference.

This meant that in the Semi finals Ballyboden faced Erins?s Isle and St Brigid?s faced Kilmacud Crokes whose U14 Football team had recently won the Dublin football feile beating Brigid?s at the semi final stage.

Return To Previous Page