St Kieran's, Kilkenny - 1-15 Kilkenny CBS - 2-3: A powerful St Kieran's College, Kilkenny, encountered the minimum of discomfort before running up their 46th victory in the Leinster Colleges final yesterday.
This city derby at Nowlan Park was a somewhat disappointing affair as Kilkenny CBS fell to the power of a team that must have strong possibilities of adding to their All Ireland success.
This win put St Kieran's into the All-Ireland final yet again, and already they have 13 wins to their credit.
St Kieran's set the tone from an early stage when Richie Power (two), Eoin Reid and James Fitzpatrick all pointed. By the 12th minute Mark Heffernan had added a goal to take the winners 1-4 to 0-1 clear, a position that reflected accurately the nature of the match.
However, from that point St Kieran's continued to play well, but two mistakes in defence gifted the opposition goals.
The first CBS goal came from Mark Drennan in the 23rd minute when his shot from 45 yards somehow ended up in the net. Then seconds before the interval John Dooley flicked the ball into the net that left CBS a mere 2-1 to 1-7 behind after being outplayed for long periods.
After the changeover the winners raced into attack and Eddie O'Donoghue shot an early point. But by the fifth minute of the restart James Fitzpatrick and Seán O'Neill had posted replies for St Kieran's and from there on they kept a firm grip on proceedings.
At the break St Kieran's replaced goalkeeper Jim Blanchfield with one of their star attackers, Power. Blanchfield obviously paid the price for the two errors which led to CBS goals. But even after taking Power out of the attack, the winners simply had too much strength for a team full of enthusiasm but lacking somewhat in direction.
ST KIERAN'S COLLEGE: J Blanchfield; D Nolan, J Lennon, D Prendergast; G Holden, B Doyle, P Kennedy (0-1); M Rice, J Tennyson; S O'Connor, M Heffernan (1-3), R Power (0-2); E Reid (0-1), S O'Neill (0-3), J Fitzpatrick (0-3). Subs: E Fitzpatrick for Blanchfield half-time; W McCormack (0-2) for O'Connor 34 mins; J Murphy for E Fitzpatrick 54 mins; E O'Gorman for Reid 59 mins.
KILKENNY CBS: T Delaney; E Buggy, J Roche, C Higgins; E O'Donoghue (0-1), C Hoyne, M Fitzpatrick; D O'Mahony, W Sainsbury; M O'Hara (0-1), M Drennan (1-0), D McCormack; J Dooley (1-0), P O'Flynn, E Guinan (0-1). Subs: J Dunphy for Sainsbury 30 mins; R Dowling for Drennan 42 mins; J Purcell for Dooley 48 mins; P Dowling for O'Flynn 54 mins.
Referee: P Dunphy (Kilkenny)
