Our handballers got the weekend off to a good start on Friday night. With interest growing we held 3 separate sessions starting with a new under 8-11s slot at 6pm, followed by under 12-14s at 7pm and a new adult social group at 8pm. The adult social group will run for approximately 6 weeks with the added incentive of a fun blitz in Croke Park Handball centre at the end of the introductory programme. All welcome!
Saturday morning was busy with the Kevin’s Heroes and ABC Nursery back in full swing. Our GPO was preparing the Under 7 group to transition to Go Games and our Under 8-12 teams trained.
Our Under 13 hurlers got the competitive games off to a good start with a strong win against Ballinteer Saint Johns. The boys took advantage of a strong wind in the first half and built up a good scoreline, leaving the visitors with a hard task in the second half. Despite that, the Ballinteer boys did fight back in the second half, but the deficit was too large and Kevin’s ran out winners on a scoreline of 4-17 to 2-3. The boys are now joint second with Ballyboden Saint Enda’s who are their next opponents.
The 13s were followed by another fine performance by the Under14 hurlers whose progress is gathering pace. The boys took on Castleknock in their final league match with a win being important to both sides. Things got off to a blistering start with a couple of nice points for the lads without reply before Castleknock got a couple of their own down the other end, along with some goal attempts, but Aodhán Ó hAoláin between the posts being the last line of defence denied them several times.
Down the other end the umpire prematurely pointed for a goal only for the Castleknock keeper to pull off a spectacular save and keep a sliotar out of the net that had no business not crossing the line. Harry Gavin with usual rhythm food find the net though and gave their defence a big headache. When the half time whistle went the scoreline was 3-5 to 1-4.
The second half started and Sonny Wakefield put on an early display scoring three lovely points in quick succession to add to his tally from the first half. Between Pearse Roche, Séadna Clancy and Tom Greenan they were not letting Castleknock get anything easy whilst Kevins were keeping most of the possession. Tommy Sweeney was catching anything that went his direction and working very hard whilst Matthew Boyle is just a master at hooking at this point running down the line displaying the art several times much to the opposition display. Point of the match was the last one scored just before the final whistle by Paddy McHugh who took the sliotar for a run around the pitch before unleashing it beautifully between the posts. The game finished Kevins 5.12 to Castleknock 4.04 which means we finished third in the league which I think we are all happy with and is a step forward with real progress being made.
Last underage game of the day was the Under 16 panel. The boys had to regroup after shipping a heavy defeat against a strong St Judes side in the B championship. But regroup they did and pulled off a a good win against visitors Clontarf. Final score 5-13 to 4-5.
In other news our Intermediate hurlers hosted Kilmacud Crokes in the Intermediate Championship where they were narrowly defeated 2-17 to 1-15. Their last group game will be crucial and is against our neighbours Good Counsel / Liffey Gaels and will be away.
