Round-Up: Go-Ahead Ireland Senior 2 Hurling Championship Semi-Finals

Picture Courtesy Des Pearson 

Naomh Barróg and St Oliver Plunkett’s/Eoghan Ruadh will contest this year’s Go-Ahead Ireland Dublin Senior 2 Hurling Championship final following their wins over Kilmacud Crokes and Faughs respectively in Parnell Park on Saturday afternoon.

First up in Donnycarney was the meeting of Barróg and Crokes with the Kilbarrack outfit doing enough to complete a 0-19 to 0-15 victory.

The bulk of the damage was on done in the first-half despite Crokes staying in the hunt initially through points by Sean Purcell, James Dillon and Alex Hatt.

However, with Joe Flanagan and Eoin Harte to the fore up front, Barróg entered the break leading by 0-12 to 0-4 thanks largely to the influence exerted by the likes of Adam Rooney, Harte and Conor Gibson.

Their margin increased to eleven points at one stage in the second-half but Crokes clawed their way back into contention thanks to points from Sean Kinsella, Ciaran O’Donovan, Hatt, Purcell, Stevie Dwyer and Shane Veale to trail by just two points.

That was as close as they got as Flanagan took his personal tally to eight points by the final whistle while Harte (0-3), Ruairí McDonald (0-2) and Nathan Kidd (0-2) made crucial scoring contributions for the winners.

The second part of the double-header saw Plunkett’s dominate from the outset on their way to a relatively comfortable 1-18 to 1-11 success against a wasteful Faughs side.

Despite playing against the wind, the winners raced out of the blocks through early points from Neil Clerkin, Ben McSweeney and Sam Clerkin before Faughs opened their own account thanks to Eoghan McNamara.

Plunkett’s continued to impress up front with Ben McSweeney netting in the 8^th minute and while James O’Brien and David Croke replied with points for Faughs soon after, they continued to register some frustrating wides.

Points from Brian McDonnell and Rónán Ó Broin saw Plunkett’s stretch their lead in the second quarter with O’Brien hitting a trio of scores at the opposite end to partially alleviate some of the damage.

However, Plunkett’s finished the half strongly with Denis McSweeney, Neil Clerkin, Ben McSweeney and Cillian Hayes all on target as they entered the break with a healthy 1-14 to 0-8 advantage.

Faughs required a strong start to the second-half but it failed to materialise despite the dismissal of Ó Broin within five minutes of the restart.

The first score after the break arrived as late as the 43^rd minute courtesy of a Carl O’Mahony free and further scores by Liam Mostyn and O’Mahony brought the Templeogue outfit to within seven points with ten minutes remaining.

Those scores failed to prompt a grandstand finish however as Conor Scully and Neil Clerkin added to the Plunkett’s tally and while Croke found the net in the 59^th minute, the goal arrived far too late to spare Faughs their disappointing fate.

Go-Ahead Ireland SHC2 Semi-Finals: Kilmacud Crokes 0-15 Naomh Barróg 0-19; Faughs 1-11 St Oliver Plunkett’s/ER 1-18.