O'Growney Cup for Kildalkey

Kildalkey won the A HL Div 1 final tonight at Dunganny with a hard-earned 0-19 to 0-16 win against Ratoath.

The reward was the O'Growney Cup, a trophy with a great tradition in Meath hurling circles and Kildalkey captain Padraig Geoghegan expressed his delight when he received the cup from Meath Co Board official Jim Mullery.

(See presentation clip)

Mullery praised both teams for producing a terrific game that was in the balance until the final whistle.

A HL DIV FINAL PRESENTATION

The game ended on a slightly negative note with red cards for Kildalkey's Sean Heavey and Ratoath's Darragh Kelly in the third minute of second-half added time, but that didn't impact the outcome.

Referee Marcus Quinn consulted with his umpires before issuing the cards.

Three points was the biggest gap at any stage of the game and Ratoath enjoyed that margin early in the first-half before Kildalkey brought it back to parity four times and forged into a 0-9 to 0-7 interval lead.

Padraig O'Hanrahan claimed four (two frees) of Ratoath's first-hal tally with Paddy Conneely registering three frees for Kildalkey.

Both players upped their scoring rates in the scond half and O'Hanrahan finished with a tally 10 points to his credit while Conneely 
tallied a total of nine.

The teams were level five times in the second-half, but in the closing minutes Kildalkey were able to tag on three Conneely frees and that ultimately made the difference.

See next edition of Meath Chronicle for full report and photos.