St Dominic’s and Four Roads advance to hurling decider

By Kevin Egan

Four Roads’ ambitions to retain the Mickey Cunniffe Cup and make it five senior hurling titles in succession are still alive and well, but Micheál Kelly and his selectors will have concerns over two county stars that are central to their chances after Tommy Morris and Conor Mulry both suffered injuries on Sunday in Ballyforan.

Oran, who lost out in last year’s county final against Four Roads, were the champions’ opponents on Sunday and all the momentum favoured the wind-assisted underdogs in the second half as they rallied from six points down to draw level deep into stoppage time.

Paddy Fallon’s 11th point of the afternoon left it all square with the allotted injury time played, but referee Aaron Clogher deemed that there had been enough stoppages in overtime to warrant one more play and when Cormac Mulry was tripped close to the sideline, if fell to Conor Morris to nail a tricky free to close out a 2-18 to 1-20 win.

Oran were by far the happier side midway through the first half with the sides level. Darragh McCormack (Oran) and Adam Donnelly (Four Roads) traded early goals and the next 13 points were shared as well, with Paddy Fallon firing over a string of points for Oran while Liam Óg Coyle looked sharp for the winners, who led by 1-7 to 1-6 at that stage of proceedings.

Declan Leonard and Eamon Kenny were hurling well along the spine of the defence to keep Four Roads at bay, but the second quarter proved to be the winning of the game.

Former Connacht poc fada champion Noel Fallon was booming long restarts directly into the Oran goalmouth throughout the half and a break off one of those puckouts led to Coyle reacting sharply to fire in a second goal. A couple of Morris frees made it 2-11 to 1-8 at half-time, which proved to be just about enough as they found the scores a lot harder to come by when hurling into the breeze.

Rory Coyle got two fine points for Four Roads but as Micheál Hussey and Cathal Kenny sent over magnificent strikes to keep narrowing the gap, the game was there for Oran to pull off an upset.

Fallon landed his 11th point of the afternoon to level the game in the fifth minute of stoppage time but there was still time for one more play, culminating in Morris splitting the posts to set up a final meeting with St Dominic’s on Sunday week, a repeat of the 2024 decider.

Concerns in the Tisrara club will now centre around Tommy Morris and Conor Mulry, both of which suffered injuries that could very well put their participation in doubt for this Sunday’s Junior 'A' football semi-final between St Aidan’s and Clann na nGael.

Tremane were the narrowest of favourites for the second semi-final after securing automatic passage through to the semi-finals through the round robin stages, and they led Thady Beirne’s St Dominic’s side for long stretches before the St. John’s parish side rallied to record a 3-14 to 0-15 victory.

St. Dominic's trailed 0-11 to 1-5 after 37 minutes and 0-12 to 1-8 after 49 minutes but two goals in three minutes from Jack Lohan and Mickey Joe Egan helped the winners on their way.

The Knockcroghery-based side laid the foundation for this win in the first half. Despite playing against a strong wind, the sides were deadlocked at 0-7 to 1-4 at half-time, with the Doms keeping a tight rein on the Tremane attack.

Naos Connaughton netted from close range to give St Dominic's a 1-1 to 0-2 lead but despite Evan Murray's three points from play and Peter Kellehan's four scores, Tremane struggled to make their wind advantage count in the face of a strong showing from the St. Dominic’s half-back line in particular.

Tremane produced their best spell in the third quarter as Kellehan (two), Murray and John Brennan helped them lead 0-11 to 1-5. Eventually St Dominic's settled through Connell Kennelly, Gavin Staunton and Egan (a free), restoring parity.

Even though Murray slotted a free thereafter, St Dominic's took control for the closing stages. Lohan won the break from Mark Miley's booming puckout before netting and another puckout from the veteran St. Dominic’s custodian caused havoc, leading to Kennelly pulling the sliotar across goal for Egan to finish from close range.

Murray cut the gap to three, but Dominic's bagged the next six scores. Egan nabbed three of those while Miley arrowed over two long range frees to make for a comfortable finish.