Harsh calls Kil’ Easkey’s All-Ireland dream
Eoin O'Neill of Kilbrittain consoles a dejected Niall Kilcullen of Easkey at the full-time whistle.
A cut above the rest of Connacht and Ulster, an agonising one point short of the powerhouse south. Or are they? But for a referee’s call, or two, and Easkey would now surely be deemed the best junior club hurling team in Ireland.
Saturday’s narrowest of defeats to Kilbrittain will take some getting over. The Sea Blues led by five points at one stage of the first-half, lighting up the Croke Park stage in their quest to become the first team from Connacht to ever win the All-Ireland junior championship.
But the decisions of referee Eamonn Furlong to disallow Andrew Kilcullen a 26th minute goal – or at least award a penalty – when Easkey were still three points ahead, and to send-off Kilcullen, one of the country’s highest scoring players, with the game all-square and over 20 minutes still to play, had catastrophic consequences for the West Sligo side. And yet the fourteen men still managed to fight back from two points behind to retake the lead and were still all-square with Kilbrittain as late as the second minute of second-half stoppage time.
At that point, the dismissal of sweeper Fionn Connolly, the conversion of the subsequent free by Kilbrittain’s Mark Hickey – his ninth point of the game – and the gallant but futile efforts of the now 13-man Easkey to manufacture an equaliser, meant the All-Ireland crown was headed for Cork for a sixth time.
It was also the sixth consecutive year that Cork’s junior champions had advanced all the way to the All-Ireland final.
Easkey had few complaints in 2023 when beaten by eight points by Ballygiblin but Saturday was evidence of the huge strides they have continued to make – not that any of that will be of much solace this week. The sense that out-of-their-control decisions heavily influenced the result hung heavy at full-time.
Andrew Kilcullen, a scorer of 4-10 in Easkey’s semi-final win against Burt and far and away the highest scorer in last season’s Nicky Rackard Cup despite Sligo not advancing to the deepest depths of the competition, had already struck four points, including a glorious sideline cut into the Davin End from the left wing, when it looked like he had also scored the game’s opening goal, not long before half-time.
He fetched a long ball sent in from midfield by his brother Niall and turned for goal, holding off would-be tacklers to boot the ball past Kilbrittain goalkeeper David Desmond. If ref Furlong had been correct in allowing Andrew Kilcullen an advantage before deciding he had taken too many steps, he was incorrect in deciding the foul – or fouls – on Kilcullen had been made outside the parallelogram. Instead of a penalty and the chance to send his team six points in front with only four minutes of the first-half left to play, Kilcullen had to settle for a pointed free. By half-time, Kilbrittain had narrowed their arrears to one point.
The Corkonians had then managed to level by the time of Kilcullen’s 40th minute dismissal, a decision Furlong arrived at after a consultation with his linesman. On the halfway line, just a yard in from the sideline in front of the Hogan Stand, the shoulder of the Easkey full-forward had caught Mark Hickey high. A booking would have been merited, a red card seemed incredibly harsh. Its impact was mighty severe. Within two minutes Kilbrittain had put two points between themselves and Easkey for the first time in the game.
Earlier on, the underdogs had settled to their task brilliantly, with five of the Easkey forwards all scoring from play inside the opening twelve minutes. Eanna Moylan and Thomas Cawley got their team off the mark inside the first sixty seconds and while Kilbrittain responded through Bertie Butler, Ronan Crowley and midfielder Sean Sexton, it was the only time in the first-half that the Cork side would hold the lead.
Three points by Andrew Kilcullen, a free included, and one apiece by Daniel Rolston and dual star Finnian Cawley had Easkey 0-7 to 0-3 ahead by the 13th minute, and the four point gap was maintained by Ronan Molloy and Andrew Kilcullen who negated wing-forward Mark Hickey’s first points of the day, both from play.
While the first touch of the Kilbrittain defenders hinted at nerves, something that ravenous Easkey were gladly capitalising upon, it should be said that the Munster champions did look menacing up front. Conor Hogan had two attempts on goal, in the seventh and 23rd minutes, which derived just one point for the corner-forward, and they had fired five wides before Easkey struck their first.
Hogan’s point was in reply to Thomas Cawley’s second while Mark Hickey’s first from a free was negated by Kilcullen, albeit his was the free that could and perhaps should have been a goal.
It still left Easkey with a 0-11 to 0-7 lead but a trio of Hickey points brought Kilbrittain to within one, with a minute of first-half stoppage time remaining.
Andrew Kilcullen was disappointed to mishit a ’65 on the stroke of half-time but he struck a fine reply after Kilbrittain centre-forward Philip Wall had levelled matters with the opening point of the second-half.
A trio of Kilbrittain wides in as many minutes preceded Ronan Crowley levelling matters for a fourth time before came the major turning point, Kilcullen’s sending off. The Cork side immediately hit the front for the first time since the sixth minute through full-forward Luke Griffin, his diligent marker Jimmy Weir having experienced hurling glory in Croke Park previously, as captain of Sligo’s Rackard Cup winners in 2019.
Hickey’s 42nd minute free doubled the advantage of the West Cork outfit – but 14-man Easkey refused to conform to the script. Inspirational long-range points by Finnian Cawley and centre-back Rory McHugh, who was superb throughout, preceded Thomas Cawley firing over a self-won free to regain Easkey the lead, 0-15 to 0-14, after 47 minutes.
Cawley, however, missed two more chances soon after, and there were wides too by substitute Cormac Vereker and McHugh, which meant that by the 55th minute Kilbrittain were back in the ascendancy thanks to consecutive points by Wall, Crowley and Hickey, a free.
An incredible point from the left wing by corner-back Oisin Moylan halved Easkey’s arrears and Thomas Cawley struck two more points either side of Crowley’s fourth of the game for Kilbrittain, rendering the game level as the clock ticked into stoppage time.
Thomas Cawley, from distance, was wide from two opportunities to restore Easkey’s lead before crucially, a Kilbrittain counterattack forced Fionn Connolly to drag substitute Declan Harrington to the ground, from which came Connolly’s dismissal on a second booking and the championship-winning point by Mark Hickey from the free.
Easkey had entered this final as four-in-a-row provincial junior hurling champions – but they craved much more. Their distinguished title as the only club in the country to have reached All-Ireland finals in both football and hurling isn’t enough for them; they want to win one. Whether they ever come as close again is the big unknown.
Scorers – Kilbrittain: Mark Hickey 0-9 (5f), Ronan Crowley 0-4, Philip Wall 0-2, Bertie Butler, Conor Hogan, Sean Sexton and Luke Griffin 0-1 each.
Easkey: Andrew Kilcullen 0-6 (3f, 1 s/l), Thomas Cawley 0-5 (1f), Finnian Cawley 0-2, Eanna Moylan, Daniel Rolston, Ronan Molloy, Rory McHugh and Oisin Moylan 0-1 each.
Easkey: Adam Rolston; Oisin Moylan, James Weir, Shane Molloy; Donall Hanley, Rory McHugh, Eoghain Rua McGowan; Ronan Molloy, Niall Kilcullen; Eanna Moylan, Finnian Cawley, Daniel Rolston; Thomas Cawley, Andrew Kilcullen, Fionn Connolly. Subs: Fionn Moylan (for E Moylan ht), Cormac Vereker (for Rolston 48), Patrick Walsh (for R Molloy 58).
Kilbrittain: David Desmond; Darragh Considine, James Hurley, Eoin O’Neill; Aaron Holland, Tomás Sheehan, Colm Sheehan; Sean Sexton, Josh O’Donovan; Mark Hickey, Philip Wall, Ronan Crowley; Conor Hogan, Luke Griffin, Bertie Butler. Subs: Thomas Harrington (for O’Neill 48), Declan Harrington (for Butler 54), Conor Ustianowski (for Hogan 55), Eoghan Byrne (for Considine 60+2).
REF: Eamonn Furlong (Wexford)
