Dead-eyed Cahill leads Sarsfields one step closer to the ultimate prize

Sarsfields 1-14

Joe Mallon Renault Senior Football Championship semi-final

Sarfields showed their grit to progress into this year’s county final where they will meet Athy in two weeks’ time. The showpiece event will likely prove to be a completely different type of game for the Newbridge outfit, and they may even be more suited to the style of play Athy will bring to the table.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bba7gUkZ-d4

Athy’s strengths lie up front, while Celbridge are able to boast a fine array of defenders but don’t have as many key players when going forward. It was Celbridge’s game plan that proved to be their downfall on Saturday afternoon as they seemed more concerned about stifling the Sash forwards than actually getting their own attack going.

At times in the first half the Celbridge forward line was made up of just one player, as David Hughes was left to toil alone inside the Sarsfields half. Tom Fitzgerald joined Hughes in the inside line on occasion but the gap between the Celbridge half-back line and their two inside forwards was always too great and they were overly reliant on Fergal Conway and Ollie Lyons to run the ball up the pitch,

The Sash have Ray Cahill largely to thank for their progression, as the centre-forward shot the lights out in a brilliant performance where he racked up 1-8.

It was Cahill who opened the scoring and he hit three of Sarsfields’ first four points, with Ben McCormack firing over the other. At the other end it was a brace of points from Hughes that kept Celbridge in touch. Mark O’Sullivan curled over a free midway through the half for the north Kildare side, but that was their last score of the opening 30 minutes as Sarsfields knocked over two more scores through Dan Nea and Gary White to leave the half-time scores at 0-6 to 0-3 in favour of the Sash.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLBqRnG5tjQ

Celbridge had enjoyed much more possession in the first half but most of that was inside their own half, while their concession of frees inside the scoring range was leaving Sarsfields with easy scoring chances.

Celbridge settled themselves back into the game however, and three quick scores from Mark O’Sullivan, Mick Constantine and O’Sullivan again brought them to within three again. Sarsfields finished the game out superbly however, with the introduction of Alan Smith proving pivotal.

Cahill, Nea and the afore mentioned Smith all raised white flags, and when O’Sullivan tapped over his fourth point of the night it left Celbridge five points in arrears, and also proved to be their last score.

Smith added a second point to his tally, and Cahill kicked the last four points of the tie, with the final one being the score of the game from 40 yards out.

The Sash look well set for the showpiece event in two weeks’ time, but their defence will certainly be tested much more against a fervent Athy attack than it was on Saturday.

Scorers for Sarsfields: R Cahill 1-8(6f), D Nea(2f) and A Smith 0-2 each, B McCormack and G White('45) 0-1 each.

Scorers for Celbridge: M O'Sullivan 0-4(4f), D Hughes 0-2(1f) and M Constantine 0-1.

Sarsfields

A O'Brien; S Lawlor, S Campbell, A Scully; C Tiernan, G White, D McDonnell; M Byrne, C Kavanagh; B McCormack, R Cahill, B Coffey; C Delhaunty, S Dempsey, D Nea.

Subs used: C Hartley, S Ryan, A Smith and D McKenna.

Celbridge

McNamara; M Constantine, M O'Grady, P Carty; D McEvoy, O Lyons, F Conway; H McGrillan, C Brophy; J Constantine, D Byrne, S Harte; D Hughes, T Fitzgerald, M O'Sullivan.

Subs used: D Corcoran and N Donnelly.

Referee: B O'Connell