St Judes 0-18      Cuala 0-19

24th Aug 2016, 7pm, Tymon Park.

 

In their last league fixture of the AHL1 2016 season, Cuala travelled to a sunny Tymon Pk last Wednesday evening to face last year’s fellow county finalists, St Judes. Although a scheduled league fixture, in effect this game was a league semi-final with both teams in contention for a place in this year’s league final and needing a win to progress. There is rarely much between these two teams and this encounter was no exception to that rule. Cuala started the better and had opened up a two point lead within 7 minutes with two well-taken scores from Nicky Kenny and David Treacy. St Judes settled however and were level not long afterwards through a Danny Sutcliffe point and a freetaker Fionn Riain O’Broin. At this stage the game was evenly poised as both sides traded pointed scores. The Judes forward-line looked dangerous going forward, however the Cuala defence, marshalled by captain Oisin Gough and ably assisted by Cian O’Callaghan, Ross Tierney, Simon Timlin, Shane Stapleton and Dublin U-21, Jake Malone, got to grips with the task in hand and dealt well with the ever-present St Judes threat. Up front, David Treacy was unerring in his free-taking, while Nicky Kenny, Mark Schutte, Sean Treacy and the Waldon brothers worked hard to create some excellent scores for Cuala. At the break Cuala were ahead by a single point, with the score at 0-10 to 0-9. The second-half began in much the same way as the first as Cuala started the better, with Sean Moran, Darragh O’Connell and Jake Malone coming out on top of the midfield battle. However, although they were creating good scoring chances, Cuala failed to capitalise on their hard-fought advantage, allowing Judes back into the game to pull ahead for the first time midway through the half. Going into the last 10 minutes however, Cuala rallied and found their range again to wrestle back a lead of two points with the clock now running down. Judes were not finished however and only some good tackling by the Cuala defence prevented a possible goal-chance and late winner for Judes. Into injury time, there was still enough time for both sides to trade placed balls and to finish on a final score of St Judes 0-18 Cuala 0-19.   Cuala now await the results of AHL games involving O’Tooles and Ballyboden to determine the make-up of the 2016 AHL1 League Final.