Under-14 Football Championship: Shield, Final: Mullingar Shamrocks 4-9 Killucan 4-15.

This Shield final produced a feast of scores and only brilliant saves by both goalkeepers prevented the feast from becoming even greater. The trend was set early with six points scored in the first six minutes. The first two belonged to Shamrocks and were scored by Oliver McNamara, following a superb Zach Aherne pass, and Andrew Shaw, within a minute. Unfortunately this was the only time that Shamrocks held the lead as the scoring trend did not continue and Killucan had established a 0-4 to 0-2 lead after six minutes. Three of these points were scored by the outstanding Killucan midfielder Conor Borthwick. Seán Óg Hynes pointed two frees and Zach Aherne poached a goal but at the interval Shamrocks trailed by 1-10 to 1-4. A great double save from Killucan goalkeeper Rafael Shafiev was partly responsible for this situation; the first from a subtle chip by Oliver McNamara  and the second when he got across his goal to save the return shot.

Shamrocks hopes of a comeback were severely punctured when Killucan added a second goal immediately after the restart. Sean Óg Hynes, Niall Ouchbakou and Brian Farrell (a great long-range effort) had points and we were treated to another piece of double-save goalkeeping magic from Rafael before Killucan added two more points to leave the score at 2-12 to 1-7 after fifteen minutes. We were then treated to more brilliant goalkeeping from Rafael and again it was a double save but on his third attempted save Shafiev fouled a Shamrocks forward and conceded a penalty. Amazingly Rafael then vacated his goal for the kick in favour of an outfield player; it didn’t matter to Emmet Walsh who slotted the penalty to make it 2-12 to 2-7 with twelve minutes remaining. James McGrath then got in on the great goalkeeping act and yes, he too performed a double save and with the next Killucan attack finger-tipped a great shot on to the crossbar but a Killucan player reacted fastest to goal from the rebound. Killucan added a further 1-3 to complete their scoring but Shamrocks had unfinished business.  Seán Óg Hynes and Brian Farrell pointed and then Shamrocks earned a second penalty. This time Rafael remained between the posts, Emmet Walsh remained unfazed and slotted his second goal of the day and added a point for good measure, before the final whistle.

Overall, this was a great game of football with hardly a cross word exchanged between players or mentors from either side, excellently refereed by Ken Daly, and featured a number of superb individual performances from players on both sides.   In the end Shamrocks were six points short: earlier in the year Shamrocks played Killucan twice and were beaten by nineteen points and eighteen points. Sunday’s result, from a great team effort, provides an accurate measurement of the improvement made by this squad of players over the season and their hard work that made this possible; their mentors Sean Hynes, Paul Aherne, Ciarán Ryan and Martin Moore are to be complimented for their work with the squad.

 Shamrocks: James McGrath, Daniel Chukwuemekg; Keith Whaley, Mark Flynn; Ciarán Luby, William Adzangoa, Matthew Clinton; Rory O’Sullivan-Sexton and Niall Ouchbakou (0-1); Emmet Walsh (2-1), Brian Farrell (0-2),  Andrew Shaw (0-1); Seán Óg Hynes (1-3) , Zach Aherne (1-0) and Oliver McNamara (0-1).  Substitutes all used: Mark Shaw, Gianluca Hassett, Matthew Moore, Daithí Ó Máirtín and Óisín Sheridan.