The Duggan Steel u-14 Football Championship kicked off with six 1st round matches scheduled around Co Kilkenny on the 31st March 2017. Piltown travelled to Inistioge for their first round encounter with Rower Inistioge for what can best be described as a very physical encounter!
The opening minutes were free of any scores, not from lack of trying, as both sets of defence held strong with some great defending from Piltown’s Kieran Kinsella, Eoin Reid & Artjoms Sergejs. However, Piltown conceded a penalty in the fourth minute but Piltown’s captain, Neil Moriarty, pulled of a great save to deny Rower Inistioge their opening score of the match.
Gavin Flynn, who was great in midfield, opened Piltown’s scoring with a fine point in the 13th minute. Piltown had found their rhythm and Conor Hogan pointed less than a minute later. A great ball into the forwards in the 17th minute was picked up by Shane Morrissey who passed it off to Emmet Flynn who raised Piltown’s first green flag of the evening with a lovely goal. Another great ball into the corner from midfielder Conor Power was again picked up by Emmet Flynn who tapped it over the bar for his second score of the evening. The half-back line of Charlie Coffey, Tom Reid & Conor Oakey were on form this evening and a great clearance from Conor Oakey found Conor Hogan who linked up with Fiachra Twohig for a fine point. Rower Inistioge scored their only point of the first half in the 24th minute from a converted free. A quickly taken free by Conor Hogan to Gavin Flynn resulted in Gavin closing out the first half with another great point. HT score Piltown 1-5 Rower Inistioge 0-1.
Rower Inistioge opened the second half scoring with a point from a converted free in the 34th minute. Eoin Reid, solid in defence all evening, halted Rower Inistioge’s next attack and found Eoin Butler who sent a lovely ball down the line to Ben Moriarty and Ben sent it back into Eoin as he ran up the centre and scored a great point in the 40th minute. Eoin Butler and Ben Moriarty were also instrumental in Piltown’s next score as Darragh Dowd intercepted a Rower Inistioge ball and sent it in to Eoin who quickly hand-passed it to Ben. This time Eoin ran up the line and Ben, seeing that Eoin was free, passed it back to him. Eoin’s shot went across the face of the goal & Fiachra Twohig managed to keep the ball from going over the line and quickly turned and drilled home Piltown’s second goal of the evening.
Rower Inistioge never gave up and fought back to score a goal in the 49th minute but it was to be their final score as, again, the Piltown defence held strong with some great defending from Adam Walsh and Tom Reid and a great clearance up the field to Conor Hogan resulted in a lovely point from Conor. Another clearance from Charlie Coffey to Conor Hogan saw Conor evade his marker as he made his way up the field. Conor passed the ball to Ben Moriarty who saw the open Conor Gannon and Conor wasted no time in finding the back of the net with a fine goal. FT score Piltown 3-7 Rower Inistioge 1-2.
The lads now advance to the quarter-finals in the coming weeks.
Piltown panel: Neil Moriarty, Artjoms Sergejs, Kieran Kinsella, Eoin Reid, Charlie Coffey, Tom Reid, Conor Oakey, Conor Power, Gavin Flynn (0-2), Conor Hogan (0-2), Darragh Dowd, Eoin Butler (0-1), Fiachra Twohig (1-1), Shane Morrissey, Emmet Flynn (1-1). Subs: Ben Moriarty, Adam Walsh, Conor Gannon (1-0), Braedon Wheeler (injured).
Ref: John Minogue
