Dynamic duo Kirwan and Hosey inspire Emo to comfortable SFC 'B' win over Clonaslee St Manman's

A Senior Football Championship 'B' semi-final now awaits Emo after they came away from the LOETB Centre of Excellence with a seven-point victory over Clonaslee St Manman's, which also confirmed their participation in next year's Senior Championship.

The dynamic duo of Pa Kirwan and Paddy Hosey did severe damage up front for Emo as they combined for 2-8 from play and were threatening to score on each attack, which left Clonaslee St Manman’s in a bind as they were chasing down an Emo lead from early on in the contest.

This loss now leaves Clonaslee St Manman’s under threat of relegation to the Intermediate Championship for 2026, and they also lost half-back James Dunne to a shoulder injury just a minute into the contest, which adds to their woes.

A light of hope for them going forward, however, was the performance of Cathal Lee, the centre-forward, outstanding for them in kicking ten of their 11 points.

After torrential downpours across the county all day, the conditions underfoot were tricky for the players, though thankfully it remained dry until some splatterings of rainfall in the second half.

Emo took a strong lead early on, led by the magnificent Pa Kirwan and though they never truly put Clonaslee St Manman's to bed, it never appeared as though they were going to relinquish the lead. The aforementioned Kirwan kicked the first score after a painstaking opening nine minutes to the contest, which saw just two attempts at scores, a pair of wides for Clonaslee St Manman's.

That score brought the game into life as Cathal Lee fired back with a wonder score at the other end before Kirwan went one better with a beauty of a two-pointer from the right wing and Emo would go on to take a commanding four-point lead through a Ross Meredith brace, the first a free and the second a fine score from play.

Flashes of brilliance illuminated a contest that wasn't bringing the crowd in attendance to the metaphorical edges of their seats along the Centre of Excellence fence and it was the turn of James McRedmond and Cathal Lee to split the posts wonderfully to reduce the gap to two with 20 minutes played.

The Clonaslee St Manman's faithful thought they had made a huge breakthrough when Niall Corbett made it into a one-on-one position with Eoin Butler, but he drove his shot straight at Butler, who punched it clear. Emo had a goal chance of their own when Paddy Hosey was denied by an onrushing Darragh Mulhall, though he did get a point from it to cancel out a Lee free.

Lee saw out the half with a third fabulous score from play to make it 0-6 to 0-5 in favour of Emo at half-time.

Pa Kirwan came dreadfully close to a dream start to the second half when his audacious attempt at goal cannoned over off the crossbar before a quick reply from Lee. Emo were on the charge, however, with their runs from deep causing problems to the Clonaslee St Manman's backs, resulting in scores for Hosey and Meredith after passes inside from Paul Lawlor and Cian Langford.

Cathal Lee scored all but one of Clonaslee St Manman's points and he added another to his tally before Meredith hit back with a point and Hosey all but brought the game out of reach when he latched on to a through ball from Stephen Norton to lash it home off the ground.

A two-point free followed by one from play for Lee reduced the gap to four, though it seemed Emo could pick off scores when they needed to, as two attacks resulted in two near identical scores from the magic Pa Kirwan off the left wing.

Three minutes of injury time was signalled, which allowed Emo an opportunity to put the icing on the cake when Meredith played an excellent ball in front of Hosey and he repeated the trick of 15 minutes earlier to deftly dink the ball into the corner.

FINAL SCORE

EMO 2-12

CLONASLEE ST MANMAN’S 0-11

SCORERS - Emo: Paddy Hosey 2-3, Pa Kirwan 0-5 (one two-pointer), Ross Meredith 0-4 (one free). Clonaslee-St Manman's: Cathal Lee 0-10 (three frees, one two-point free), James McRedmond 0-1.

EMO: Eoin Butler; Shane Murphy, Eoin Montague, James O'Rourke; Stephen Norton, Darren Strong, Cian Langford; Sean Greene, Brian Gorman; Jack Murphy, Nigel Murphy, Pa Kirwan; Paul Lawlor, Ross Meredith, Paddy Hosey. Subs: Ruairi Burke for Murphy (37 mins)

CLONASLEE-ST MANMAN'S: Darragh Mulhall; Josh Flynn, Paddy Purcell, Diarmuid Conroy; James Dunne, Ger Reilly, John Rigney; Jack Owens, Cian Conroy; Niall Hogan, Cathal Lee, Niall Corbett; James McRedmond, Cian Callaghan, Manus Dunne. Subs: Tom Smith for J Dunne (1 mins, inj), Noah Flynn for Hogan and Fionn Owens for Purcell (both 48 mins), Paddy Hyland for Callaghan (51 mins), Seamus Rosney for J Owens (56 mins)

REFEREE: Des Cooney (St Joseph's)

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