This Swinford Junior team just don’t give up and once again they played to the last minute of todays entralling relegation playoff with Kilfian played in Knockmore.
Playe in good conditions in front of a very poor attendance both teams played with great spirit in a very tight affair. Kilfian defeated Swinford in last years group stage of the championship but Swinford with a lot of players missing were not going to down without a fight.
Both team started nervously with some wides before Kilfian went in to a two point lead. james Sweeney opened the scoring with a punched point from a dropping Adrian Forkan free. Kilfian extended their lead before Gearoid Brady got his first point for Swinford.
Kilfian enlarged their lead to three points after 20 minutes with two more scores before three points from Adrian Forkan in the space of five minutes leveled the game. A bit of slack defending and missed opportunities let Kilfian score 1-1 before half time to give them a four point lead at the break.
Adrian Forkan maintained his free taking to peg one back just after the restart save for Kilfian to keep the gap at four with a free. We will give the next point to jason McLoughlin following a few deflections to keep us in the game.
Kilfian then tok control of the game and all looked doomed for Swinford with three unanswered points to leave six between us midway through the half.
Once again Adrian Forkan took control and scored four unanswered points. Has to be said Kilfian kicked a lot of wides in this period under great pressure from the Swinford defence. In addition we lost Fergal Loftus to a very harsh black card. If the black card is to stay in the GAA referees have to be consistent, there was a much better usage of the card in the first half when Paul McDonagh was dragged to the ground. Well thats an argument for another day……
Into the last ten minutes with only two between the days Damien Geraghty pulled off a great save to keep the game alive. Kilfian though got another point to leave that first half last minute goal between the teams. We had some great opportunites to narrow the gap but for some poor wides.
This Swinford team showed in the Canon Henry final a few weeks that they don’t know how to give up and well into injury time the ball was played into a packed goal area for James Sweeney who started the scoring for Swinford to bang the ball into the back of the net.
From the resulting kick out the full time whistle came and a bit of confusion rained as the Knockmore score board had Swinford winning by a point but the score was level and both teams deserve another go at each other. Full time Swinford 1-11 Kilfian 1-11
Swinford: Damien Geraghty, Aiden McLoughlin, Paul McDonagh, Jonathan Moore, Fergal Loftus, Mark McNicholas, Joshua Smith, Sean Predergast, James Sweeney, Jason McLoughlin, Michael Predergast, Gavin Moore, Adrian Forkan, JP Broderick, Gearoid Brady.
Scorers: Adrian Forkan 0-8, James Sweeney 1-1, Gearoid Brady, Jason McLoughlin 0-1 each