Senior hurling final

CityJet Senior Hurling Championship Final

Kilburn Gaels 1-16

Robert Emmets 0-14

On Sunday the 15^th of October, the CityJet Senior Hurling Championship came to a conclusion with Robert Emmets looking to complete a 3-in-a-row of senior championships. Their opponents Kilburn Gaels, the last team other than Emmets to lift the cup that back in 2014. Emmets found themselves in the final thanks to an eleven-point win over fierce rivals St. Gabriel’s. Kilburn’s semi-final win was even more emphatic as they romped to a 44-point win over a helpless Cú Chulainns side. Intent on dethroning the champions Kilburn set about continuing their fine form and opened the scoring with just a minute on the clock. They followed this with three more unanswered points that left them with a 4-point lead after 11mins. Emmets finally opened their own account in the 12^th minute, which was to be the start of a run of tit for tat scores right up until 4mins into added time when Kilburn signalled their intent just before the short whistle. Kilburn slotted a point before sucker punching a despairing Emmets team with a goal to give them a 5-point half time lead. From here on it was always going to be an uphill struggle for Emmets, as they found themselves now chasing an inspired Kilburn team and also playing into a strong breeze in the second half. No sooner had the ball been thrown in for the second half and Kilburn where back on the score sheet with a point in the first minute of the half. An 8-minute lull ensued soon after where neither team produced enough quality to fashion a scoring chance. Then Kilburn stumbled upon a mini-purple patch hitting two points in as many minutes to leave them in a commanding 8-point lead with just 20mins to play. Emmets however are not double Senior Champions for nothing and they found some nice scores in a period where they outscored a perhaps less experienced team by 6 points to 2. This left the score reading 1-13 to 0-12 in favour of Kilburn Gaels and 60mins played. Emmets can have no complaints however as there was 9 mins of additional time played, sufficient time to cut out a 4-point deficit. In this time, they did find 2 of those scores, however, they were powerless to stop Kilburn keeping them at arm’s length with 3 scores of their own as they picked off an Emmets team searching for a vital goal. It finished in a comfortable enough 5-point win for Kilburn Gaels on a score line of 1-16 to 0-14. Kilburn ending Emmets hope of a 3-in-a-row with an impressive performance that saw them lead from start to finish. Congratulations too to the boys and girls of Kilburn Gaels and Fr. Murphy’s who provided the half-time exhibition.