Coming off the back of two defeats in pre-season friendlies, mentors were unsure what type of performance this St Brigids team would produce against St Pauls in their opening round of their Championship campaign at the Dub Playing Fields. From the throw in however, old gremlins of failure to convert opportunities into scores and inability to retain possession were disposed of as the dominant mid-field pairing of Oliver Mc Donald and Conor Mc Granaghan kept the attack well supplied with hard won ball. The forward line spearheaded by a fired up Cormac Mc Bride kept up relentless early pressure on a resilient St Pauls defence.
Within ten minutes of the start St Brigids raced to a 1 – 4 to no score advantage. The match was far from in the bag however and St Pauls were to rally toward the end of the first half taking a well-worked point from play followed by a goal from the restart. To their credit S Brigids did not panic and nursed their way back to a comfortable margin chalking up a further five scores leaving the teams going into the break St Brigid`s 3-5 to St Pauls 1-1
A complete change in attack personnel for St Brigids in the second half saw equally as much pressure from the boys in blue and amber but the rate of conversion to scores did drop somewhat- a credit to a stalwart bout of defending by a St Paul’s side decimated by injury and illness. St Brigids added a further 6 points to no reply before a final surge from St Pauls caught St Brigids defence out of position and clinically their full forward finished a goal seconds before the final whistle.
Mentor E Convery and P Campbell were pleased with the performance and saw the benefits of intensive winter training programme being reflected in fitness throughout the game and a strong team ethic of playing for the jersey. Normally no one player would be singled out for credit in a team performance, both mentors however felt a strong controlled defensive performance by Ben Kelly gave the rest of the team the time and confidence to go on all out attack. Well done Ben – just goes to prove the forwards don’t get all the glory!!
