Churchill GAA Club News

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St Brendan’s Championship Final: Churchill 3-06; Ardfert 3-14. Churchill finished their season with the St Brendan’s Championship final played in Churchill on Sunday afternoon.

Churchill led by 4 point with 5 minutes to play in normal time, but Ardfert, playing with a strong breeze, finished extremely strongly to take the St. Brendan’s Board Senior Championship title on a final score of 3-14 to 3-06.

Churchill, aided by the breeze in the 1st half, started brightly with early scores from Ivan Parker, but Ardfert struck with a goal in the 10th minute to gain the lead. Churchill rallied back to draw level a minute later with a point from Sean Donnellan. Both teams shared the next 4 scores to stay level.  Ardfert struck the final score from a free to lead at half time by 1-04 to 0-06.

Churchill showed great determination to regain the lead in the opening minutes of the 2nd half.

Parker ran towards goal and was about to score when he was pulled down from behind for a penalty. Oisin O’Brien, who had come on for the injured Pa McCarthy, stepped up to slot it home.

Ardfert went back to work and were back level before Mixer O’Brien broke inside his defender to finish excellently to the net. Ardfert had closed to within a point when on 44mins Churchill were reduced to 14 men when Parker was dismissed for a 2nd yellow card.

Churchill emptied the bench as bodies tired and rallied again with a point and a goal from Liam O’Donnell to lead by 4 with 5 minutes remaining.

However after receiving 2 black cards and no remaining substitutes, Churchill had to finish the game with 13 men.

The wind and the numerical advantage told in the end as Ardfert wrung the changes and hit the equalising goal with a minute left in normal time.

They followed up with a free a minute later to take the lead and as Churchill struggled Ardfert added another goal and tacked on a few points to win by a margin which was not indicative of the competitive nature of the game throughout.

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