J.F.C.

Our Junior ‘A’ football team have qualified for the East Cork Championship Final. At Watergrasshill on Sunday last we got through to our fourth final in five years by defeating Carrigtwohill. We won by 4-14 to 0-7 in the end but we must bear in mind that because of their involvement in next Sunday’s Co. Intermediate Hurling Championship, Carrig were without 7 or 8 players. The team they had on duty however had defeated Castlemartyr just a week previously whereas our last football championship game was all of 12 weeks ago. We got the perfect start when in our second attack Donal Ryan punched home a great goal. The points soon followed and we were 1-5 to 0-1 ahead after 15 minutes. A second goal from Donal put us really into the driving seat. After this Carrig did come into the game and scored 4 points before the break. This meant we were 2-7 to 0-5 ahead at the short whistle. It was a good lead but considering that we were playing with a very strong breeze it wasn’t a flattering lead. There was no let up from our lads in the second half as they attacked regularly and the defence, capably led by Pat Walsh, were well on top. Five minutes into the second half Barry Johnson had a piledriver saved by the Carrig keeper but the in-rushing Sean O’Brien finished the ball to the net to give us a really commanding 3-7 to 0-5 lead. After this it was only a matter of adding on a further 1-7 while our defence conceded just 2 further points. Our fourth goal came from sub Colm O’Keeffe who also kicked a point as did ‘Georgie’ Johnson. Overall this was a good workmanlike display with 20 players taking part. ‘Twas on St Patrick’s Day we played the first round of this competition in Ballynoe against Cloyne, we lost by one point that day so great credit is due to the players and to Pat, Mossie and Vincent for progressing to the final once more.
Team & Scorers: R Cahill, S Kearney, J Murphy, P Walsh, P O’Driscoll, S Hogan, P Murphy, T Moloney, S Ryan, S O’Brien (1-3), E O’Flynn, B Johnson (0-1), J O’Driscoll (0-3), D Ryan (2-1), T Broderick (0-4).
Subs: B Murphy, C O’Keeffe (1-1), J O’Dowd, D Johnson (0-1), P O’Reilly.
We lost the 2002 and 2003 final to Erins Own before winning our first ever title in 2004 at the expense of Fr O’Neills. Last year we lost the semi final to Erins Own who went on to win out the county. Our opponents in Sunday weeks final will again be Fr O’Neills. Two years ago we beat them by 8 points so they will be all out for revenge. Like ourselves this will be O’Neills fourth final but they have already won this championship 3 times. They were defeated in the Intermediate Hurling Championship in early August so its been all football since then. Their minor team inflicted a very heavy defeat on us this year and went on to win the East Cork Championship and they were involved in the county until last week. Brendan Walsh will unfortunately miss the final but last Sunday showed that we have strength in depth in our panel. Training will continue on this Thursday night October 19th at 7.30pm. The Rathcormac Tyre Centre are the sponsors of our football team and we wish to thank Pat for his generosity over the years.