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From Rag Ball Rovers to Junior D Champions

In accepting the Junior D Championship trophy Syls captain Darren Burke gave great credit to Padjo, Declan Barnes and Aido Mahon for starting the team a couple of years ago and taking them from RBR to winning an adult trophy. There was a great crowd at Balgriffen to cheer on the Shay Keogh inspired outfit. Great credit to our football teams who have all had a good year and maybe this is the first of a few trophies.

JFC D Final St Sylvesters 2-3 Parnels 1-4

Some good pictures at Caroline Quinns Site - click the image to go there
c quinn jfcD

 

 

 

Nice to get revenge over The Nells after losing the Junior B Final to them a few weeks ago. Interesting that 7 ofthe 8 junior finalists were Fingal (and Grangegorman not far off) . THis was traditional junior football at it's best - a heady mix of 'older' waining stars and some young up and comers. We lead by 1-2 to 0-2 after a stop start first half where neither team found their rythm, Syls goal came off a Shay Keogh free from about 40 metres which seemed to go straight to the net. Ciaran Falvey walked into a proverbial haymaker and had to come off - hopefully he is ok, it didn't look pretty. Someone commented on Dylan Redmond, ' I thought he was over there' . . he was, he was everywhere.

Parnels took the lead with about 5 minutes remaining when a hotly disputed free was deflected to our net. It didn't look good but, did we panic, not a chance. We drove forward with purpose and had a few attacks repelled before a dubious penalty (hotly contested puts it mildly) for a throw gave us the chance we needed. Behind by a point and with some of the strategists advising he take the point, Shay Keogh is too long around to shirk a chance to win a championship medal and nearly burst the net to the keepers right. We had to hold out for a few more minutes, see the lead picture, before taking our first football trophy of the season (no pressure on Gabrial, Derek, Chris et al).

Philip Murray made a great save late in the game to deny Nells a certain goal, Darren Burke played a captains part at full back, especially in the last 15 minutes, Barry Kiely had a great game at centre back, Shay Keogh was probably the best player on the field at midfield, Barry Langton was my pick of the forwards along with the evergreen Guiden, Mambo Hanratty, Gavin Dolan, Mark Ryan and Barry Mahon.

There was a bit of crack in the club after, well deserved, well done lads.

Congratulations to Wild Geese of Oldcastle who took the C Championship just before our game. They had great support and I'd bet they had a bit of crack themselves last night.

 

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