Oulart-The Ballagh 2-13
Cuala 0-13
OULART-THE BALLAGH’S AIB Leinster club hurling final heartache is finally over after capturing a maiden title at Carlow’s Netwatch Cullen Park.
Goals either side of the half-time break from Tomas Dunne and Garrett Sinnott helped secure the breakthrough success after a series of high profile final failures.
The Wexford champions lost all four finals between 2010 and 2013 including one to rank outsiders Mount Leinster Rangers of Carlow two years ago.
Ironically, Frank Flannery’s Oulart came into this game as underdogs themselves and thrived on that position to effectively seal victory by the three quarter mark.
They were 1-7 to 0-2 up at half-time and when Sinnott capitalised on a goalkeeper error for Oulart’s second goal in the 44th minute they led by 12.
Cuala finally conjured their best form after that and David Treacy finished with 10 points overall but they’d simply left themselves too much to do.
All of Oulart’s big guns stood up for them in testing, windy conditions with David Redmond and ex-Wexford attacker Des Mythen performing superbly.
Oulart played with the strong first-half wind and were 0-7 to 0-2 up before Dunne’s goal when he fired in from close range after a probing Redmond run.
Kirwan and Dunne again pointed after the restart to put them 1-9 to 0-2 clear. Cuala had the wind advantage but were well below their best and went 25 minutes at one stage without a score.
They gifted Oulart a second goal too when goalkeeper Sean Brennan spilled a long free, allowing Sinnott to nip in and kick the ball to the net.
Cuala did outscore Oulart by nine points to three from there on but they needed at least one goal and it never arrived as Oulart held on for a February 6 All-Ireland semi-final tie with Munster and Limerick champions Na Piarsaigh.
Scorers for Oulart-The Ballagh: Nicky Kirwan 0-5 (0-3f, 0-1 65), Tomas Dunne 1-1, Tommy Storey 0-3, Garrett Sinnott 1-0, Des Mythen 0-2, David Redmond and Eoin Moore 0-1 each.
Scorers for Cuala: David Treacy 0-10 (0-7f), Con O’Callaghan 0-2, Sean Treacy 0-1
OULART-THE BALLAGH
1. Conor O’Leary
4. Barry Kehoe
3. Keith Rossiter
5. Eoin Moore
2. Paul Roche
6. Shaun Murphy
7. Kevin Sheridan
8. David Redmond
9. Michael Jacob
13. Rory Jacob
21. Tomas Dunne
11. Tommy Storey
12. Des Mythen
10. Garrett Sinnott
15. Nicky Kirwan
Subs
27. Dennis Morton for Michael Jacob (51)
19. Peter Murphy for Tomas Dunne (54)
14. Peter Sutton for Sinnott (60)
CUALA
1. Sean Brennan
4. Simon Timlin
3. Cian O’Callaghan
5. John Sheanon
2. Ross Tierney
6. Oisin Gough
7. Sean Moran
8. Jake Malone
9. Darragh O’Connell
19. Con O’Callaghan
11. Colm Cronin
10. Cian Waldron
13. David Treacy
14. Mark Schutte
15. Sean Treacy
Subs
12. Colum Sheanon for Moran (23)
20. Nicky Kenny for Colum Sheanon (45)
Referee: David Hughes (Carlow).
