On Sunday last, September 15th in St. Conleths Park, Newbridge our U16 footballers faced Suncroft in the KWETB Kildare U16 A Championship final and with it the chance to complete a famous league and championship double.
Clane had narrowly lost out to the same opposition in an earlier round of the competition which meant a much tougher route to the final (including playing the quarter and semi-finals within the space of 48 hours and they were determined that lighting wouldn't strike twice.
The game started bang on time at 11:45am with a great crowd in attendance to support the lads. Clane won the throw in, settled quickly and were a point up within the opening few minutes of the game . Clane had the better of the opening exchanges and a quick ball to the full forward line resulted in a penalty being awarded to Clane which was duly converted. Suncroft responded well and got the next two scores; one from a free and another from play . Clane then scored the next score with a free and from the resulting kick out Clane pieced together the move of the game which ended in a superb team goal. Suncroft lifted their game and out scored Clane by six points to two leaving the half time score as Clane 2-04 Suncroft 0-07.
Clane started the second half as smartly as they did the first half with a quick point, their third goal and another point soon followed before Suncroft got their opening score of the second half . The Clane backs excelled in the second half under very difficult weather conditions and only conceded one more score for the remainder of the game .
Clane dominated the last ten minutes of the game scoring six magnificent points in the wet difficult conditions to see out the match.
Final score Clane 3-12 Suncroft 0-09.
Congratulations to a team of fine young men and a quality management group of Ger Fanning, John O'Doherty, Tony Tighe and John Ball.
#ClaonadhAbú
Squad: Adam Farrell, Luke Kelly, Stephen Brereton, Sean Malone, Ryan O' Connell, Padraig O' Doherty, Harry O' Neill [Captain], Sean Sheridan, Jake Burke, Darren Ward, Hugh Prendergast, Daire O' Doherty, Izac Jamirah, Adam Fanning, Jamie Merriman, Rossa Hallissy, Tom Malone, Oisin Tighe, Dean Comiskey, Oisin O' Sullivan, Marc Gibbons, Ethan Farrell, Sean Tighe.
Management: Ger Fanning, John O'Doherty, Tony Tighe and John Ball