Tullow Community School 1/0 St: Mary’s CBS Carlow
By Brian O’Reilly, Competition Organiser
Tullow Community School defended their U16 South Leinster title on Friday last (March 4) and in doing so completed another double and their fifth trophy in eleven months:
In a repeat of last year’s Final Tullow overcame a weakened CBS side that were missing three key players as they were rested for their School’s GAA Final:
Last season Dale Cosgrove was the hero with a hat trick and he proved the hero yet again as his solidarity goal was to prove decisive in a cracking decider to seal victory for Tullow:
Tullow started the brighter and were commanding the midfield without creating many chances: The first real chance of the game fell to Cosgrove when he found himself free on the edge of the box only to blast over:
In the 25th minute the breakthrough came after a brilliant run from Conor O’ Brien saw his shot well saved only for the alert Cosgrove to follow up and smash home the rebound from the tightest of the angles: This seemed to inspire the CBS School to improve their performance and from here on they were to dominate with Tullow’s keeper Craig Doyle in inspirational form to save his team:
For the final ten minutes of the half CBS threw everything forward and found Doyle in the way on three occasions:
The second half was even for the first ten minutes with midfield cancelling each other out: Tullow began to weaken slightly and the final half hour saw some outstanding defending and brilliant goal keeping keep Tullow in front:
With twenty minutes to go CBS got a corner and when their centre forward did finally beat the inspiredDoyle centre half Liam Brennan was on the line to chest the ball away:
Tullow dug deep and had hung on for the win to see them complete a double over St Mary’s this year in the U14 and U16 competitions:
With Tullow having won the U16, U19 double last year and the First Year League it has been a remarkable twelve months for the school who had gone two years without reaching any finals:
Tullow CS: Craig Doyle, Liam Brennan, Tadgh O’Connor, Darragh Bermingham, Lee Byrne, Graham Byrne, Daniel Minchowski, Keith Curran, Jonathan Lawlor, Conor O’ Brien, Dale Cosgrove (Capt)
Subs used: Donal Smithers for O’ Brien