Kinsale Community School U15 Footballers become Munster Champions !!

For the first time in the school’s history KCS have been crowned Munster Champions. The U15 footballers went up against Causeway (Kerry) in the U15 Munster final on Wednesday last (12th Dec). The two sides met in Ballyagran of Limerick for a 12:00 throw in. It was great to see the two teams going head to head for the 60 minutes with a showcase of some great skills by both teams. KCS opened the scoreline with a point from Matthew Higgins. There was some great battles had throughout the pitch especially in midfield where the two teams were evenly matched. Riordan Stewart had an outstanding game from start to finish and his big solo runs in the first half put the Causeway side under serious pressure. KCS are a very athletic team and when they attacked in force the Causeway side found it hard to manage. These powerful runs from the O’ Callaghan twins along with Paul Graham and Charlie Sheehan helped KCS get the first goal of the game. It was a great worked move up the pitch and James Murphy was on the end of it to tick the ball in the back of the net. IT was 1-1 to 0-0 after 10 mins a great start for the lads from Kinsale. However, soon after the Causeway men were hitting the net with an excellent run from there centre forward and a great finish. For the remainder of the first half it was real end to end stuff. The conditions made it hard for the players to kick long range points. Louis Allman was next to strike for KCS with another goal and Matthew Higgins kicked over a lovely point. The scoreline was now 2-2 to 1-0 approaching half time.

As the teams came out for the second half it was very hard to tell which way the game was going to go. Jason Russell was on top of his game at full back. He made sure KCS had a strong foundation in the backs at all time. The full forward line of Daniel O’ Donovan, Louis Allman and James Murphy had the Causeway backs under serious pressure in the second half. Daniel O’ Donovan getting on the end of a few moves but the Causeway keeper made a few fantastic saves. With 15 minutes into the second half KCS opened up a 9 point lead. Causeway got on top then and a goal followed by a penalty left only 3 points between the teams with 10 minutes left. As KCS have done all year they responded well and finished strong with points from Max Cronin, Matthew Higgins and a late goal from Daniel O’ Donovan sealed the win. Overall it was a well deserved victory and great to win a first ever Munster Football Championship for the school.