arva designed_Layout 1 04/11/2013 23:43 Page 5
Arva team captain Leah Brady receives the U-12 Group 4 cup from Brian Seagrave (Co. Youth Board Chairman)
second-half saw Brady’s side fall behind again and it took a Gavin Doyle goal to put them into their first lead in the 42nd minute. Kill drew level but a quick hat-trick of points from Ellis looked to have Arva with one hand on the cup until the Shamrocks struck 0-4 in the remaining minutes, including a 50-metre free from Sean Gaffney in injury-time which sealed the 1-14 to 1-13 win. Arva (JFC final v Kill): Sean Donnelly; Shane Finnegan, James Morris, Sean McManus; Stephen Ellis, Thomas Brady, Shane McEntee; Gavin Doyle (1-0), Fergal McGlade; Jonathan McCabe (0-1), Ciaran Brady, Peter Morris (0-
be. “At the end of the day, when you’re three points up with five minutes to go you should be there. Maybe if we had a few older players around that would hold up the ball and not be as eager to get forward, but Kill had experienced footballers there like Pearse McKenna and kicked some phenomenal scores at the end of the game to get back into it. The free kick at the end of the game was worthy of winning any game at any level.” While the defeat came as a devastating blow to Arva, there would be some consolation a week later when a comfortable league victory over Shannon
Leah Brady
Jamie Grey
Under pressure... Arva `keeper Sean Donnelly
Fergal McGlade
Kevin Bouchier
Manager Ciaran Brady
Kayla Brady
1); Alan Barry, Kevin Bouchier (0-5, 4f), Brian Ellis (0-6). Subs: Patrick Murtagh for S McEntee (42mins), Conal Sheridan for G Doyle (44), Brian Fitzpatrick for F McGlade (54). “We’d actually played them a few weeks before the final in a league game in Arva and beat them by three points that day,” said Donnelly. “We knew that if we could win the battle in the middle of the field that we’d have a good chance of beating them. When you have big players like (Pearse) McKenna and (Sean) Gaffney around the middle with that experience it’s hard to play against. But, in saying that, we thought our youth and fitness would be able to combat that but unfortunately it wasn’t to
Gaels saw them secure promotion to Division Two for 2014. “We got promoted the weekend after the final, which was a good boost to us,” said Donnelly. “Hopefully, we’ll have no retirements in 2014 and we’ll have a couple of young lads coming in. Our aim next year is going to be to give Division Two a rattle and obviously we want to win the junior championship now that we got to a final and lost it. We’d like to get back and win that after coming so close and hopefully we will.” 2014 should see Arva start as favourites for the JFC and given their impressive form this past season, who’d bet against them to end what will be a 21year wait for a championship title?
264
Gavin Doyle
Brian Ellis