Éire Óg and Kiltegan ends level
Hollywood, Rathnew and Newtown all made it through to the last eight after they won their qualifier matches against Annacurra, Bray Emmets and Avondale over the weekend.
The clash between Éire Óg and Kiltegan was the most competitive of the lot, going right down to the wire before Kiltegan’s midfielder Rory Finn snatched the equaliser deep in injury-time.
Both teams missed a lot of chances with Éire Óg wayward in a dominant first half which saw them lead 1-4 to 0-4 — the goal scored by their star man, full-forward Declan O’Mahony — while Kiltegan notched up eight wides in the second half as they sought to close the gap. Éire Óg goalie Lorcan Traynor brought off a number of really fine saves as Kiltegan went in search of goals before Pádraig Keogh, top scorer Seanie Furlong with 0-5, and Finn fired over the vital three late points to put the match to a replay.
There was a goal fest in the match between Hollywood and Annacurra with super sub PJ O’Keeffe writing the winning script for Hollywood with the last of the match’s seven goals in the 51st minute to set up a 3-12 to 4-6 victory.
Super goals by Clive Horan and Mick O’Brien for Avondale and Thomas Burke and Tony Hannon for Hollywood enlivened an otherwise pedestrian game of football and the Westerners will have to step up on this performance if they are to progress much further in this championship.
Annacurra led by 3-4 to 2-4 at half-time and the tight scoring throughout kept the match on a knife edge right to the finish.
Bray Emmets knocked Rathnew out of the championship in 2012 with a one point victory and pushed the village hard for their revenge victory by 0-10 to 0-7 at Aughrim in the second match on Saturday.
Rathnew are not the team they were a few years ago and they struggled for their 0-5 to 0-4 lead at half-time, with top scorer Nicky Mernagh grabbing the lead point in injury-time after Niall McGraynor had levelled things up for Bray on three occasions.
McGraynor tied the game up for a fourth time after the restart but was later substituted after failing to convert a couple of good scoring chances. Rathnew got a grip and points by Mernagh, Tommy Gill, Eddie Doyle and Theo Smith opened up a double scores gap 0-10 to 0-5 nearing the 60th minute.
Bray came with a late burst and Des Kelly and John O’Keeffe narrowed the gap to three with points from frees, with John O’Keeffe’s injury-time rocket just skimming over the bar, but these scores were too little too late.
Full-forward Dean Odlum was the hero for Newtown as he notched 1-6 for his team in their 2-13 to 0-12 victory over Annacurra.
