Dunnamaggin are Leinster champions.
Any club team that ever emerges from Kilkenny are a force to be reckoned with in Leinster and in the All-Ireland club and this year’s county junior champions Dunnamaggin are proving no different.
The south Kilkenny village were relegated from the ever competitive intermediate championship in 2017 but it didn’t take them long to find their feet and get down to work in junior.
The Hayden Park club powered to county glory a few weeks ago when they took care of Piltown in the final and since then, they’ve wiped the floor with every challenge that’s come their way in Leinster.
Co junior champions 2018. Unreal pic.twitter.com/17Fpk75oaF
— Dunnamaggin GAA Club (@DunnamagginGAA) October 21, 2018
Dublin champions St Maurs were slaughtered in the semi-final, the game out of sight with the score 0-15 to 0-1 at half-time. On Sunday in the decider, it was a similar tale despite a strong start for their opponents, the Meath champions Na Fianna.
The Royal County men hit the ground running in Nowlan Park, reeling off three unanswered points to ask a few questions of the Kilkenny men.
— Dunnamaggin GAA Club (@DunnamagginGAA) December 1, 2018
They weren’t long answering and they answered like any 1/8 favourites should do.
Free-taker Tommy Maher took the chances that came his way and once young forward Ronan Coffey, their lively number 13 got in for a goal after 12 minutes, they never looked back from there.
John Fitzpatrick scored another a couple of minutes later and with Coffey piling on the points, the favourites went into the break with a five point, 2-6 to 0-7 lead.
That’s a fair lead for any side to have going into a second half but it’s even more secure when you’ve a defender of Noel Hickey’s quality minding the house for you. The three-time All-Star and nine-time All-Ireland winning 37-year-old returned from a hamstring injury to take his place at the edge of the square on Sunday and he wasn’t in the mood for letting much past him.
The second half continued in that pattern with the speedy 21-year-old Coffey ending his day with 2-5 from open play. They’d power on to win on a final score of 3-17 to 1-11.
When you consider that Kilkenny clubs have won this competition out in three of the last six years, and that Dunnamaggin were intermediate last year, it sounds some warning to every other club still standing.
And then they’ve this genius as the manager, how could things possibly go wrong?
No chance a certain @DunnamagginGAA man was going to get wet during their Leinster quarter final yesterday…no chance he was going to miss the game either 🤣@KilkennyCLG pic.twitter.com/ROeQ2lKSmy
— SportsJOE (@SportsJOEdotie) November 4, 2018
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