St. Joseph’s GAA Team

It was a historic day in Fairview Park on Thursday the 11th September as St. Joseph’s finally returned to the Cumann na mBunscol GAA Football Championship after a long 86 year absence. Fine wins against St. Nicholas of Myra and Scoil Chaitriona Baggot Street (either side of a nail bitingly close loss against Christ the King from Cabra) saw our boys progress from the tricky group stages to the quarterfinals of the Corn An Choigiltis Náisiúnta Championship. The highly experienced Our Lady’s Grove from Goatstown were made to work hard for their place in the semi-final but in the end, their experience gave them the edge over ‘The Wallers’. 

So the Croke Park journey is over for this year but the boys will be back ready to go all the way to the final next year! Well done lads!

You can read the match report from the historic opening game below.

















Match 1: St. Joseph’s - v - St. Nicholas of Myra

The experienced St. Nicholas of Myra made the visit to Fairview Park for the opening league game, St. Joseph’s first competitive GAA football match in almost 86 years. Playing conditions were ideal and the 20 degree sunshine gave the great crowd of supporters a reason to smile before the throw-in.

An early break sent Clayton clear of the Myra defence but their goalkeeper pulled off a fantastic point blank save to keep it scoreless. Possession stayed with East Wall for the opening exchanges but crucially there were no scores to show for the hard work. Myra upped their game and waves of yellow jerseys were soon bombarding the East Wall goal. Nothing could be done to prevent the two early goals that put the visitors 6 points clear. The early setback was made worse with our forward Vida coming off injured. The local lads rallied together though and goals from Jack and Kyle levelled the game. Jack added a well taken point shortly after to give East Wall the narrowest of leads. The Myra goalkeeper was in excellent form and was singlehandedly keeping his side in the game with a string of wonderful saves. Clayton, Cameron and Warren kept up the pressure and all got in on the action with well taken goals before the half-time whistle that left East Wall with a commanding 5-1 to 2-0 lead.

The second half was a far tighter affair with Myra hitting an early goal to close the gap. A penalty for the visitors could have really swung the momentum in Myra’s favour but Nicolas (making his debut in goals) pulled off a stunning fingertip save to push the ball over the bar for just a single point. With players feeling the heat the pace of the game slowed. Kyle put in a real captain’s performance in the latter stages. The tenacious midfielder was showing endless energy and his efforts were well rewarded as he added three more goals to kill off the game. A rested Vida came back off the bench with 5 minutes to go and he added a further two points, one of which was a sublime 25 metre score after some excellent build up play.

All twenty one players were fantastic in what was an emphatic opening day victory. A special mention must go to the fourth class boys making the big step up to the senior team for the first time. Ugnius, Rickwang, Oscar, Karolis and Edward were excellent.

Final score: St. Joseph’s East Wall 8-3 – St. Nicholas of Myra 3-1

Scorers: Kyle 4-0, Jack 1-1, Clayton 1-0, Cameron 1-0, Warren 1-0, Vida 0-2

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