Strokes of fortune favour Bandon Grammar

Margins have been fine in this year’s Munster Senior Schoolgirls Cup final, and it took sudden death penalty strokes to crown Bandon Grammar as the 2012 champions at Rosbrien, Limerick yesterday. Despite a glut of penalty corners at both ends, neither side could find a breakthrough in a low-key encounter that finished 0-0 after extra time, as goalkeepers Muireann Mellett (Bandon) and Eloise Hickey (Crescent) repelled all that came their way. A high-quality penalty shootout followed, with each side missing just once, but Crescent’s Clodagh Moloney – who had scored her earlier flick and had a superb game – saw her stroke repelled brilliantly by Mellett.

Bandon’s players and supporters piled into the goal to celebrate, hoisting Mellett high as they acclaimed a first title since 2009. The west Cork school had three particularly proud mothers on the sideline; Libby Howe, Lillian Chambers and Liz Sweetnam looked on as their daughters, Bandon skipper Vicky Burns, Loraine Copithorne and Laura Buttimer respectively, emulated them in representing the school in a Munster final. For Crescent, it ruined their dreams of three titles in a row, but the Limerick school had five juniors in a very young panel who will come back stronger. Crescent had top performers in captain Róisín Upton and Moloney, with Nicole Power and Karen FitzGerald – despite a yellow card – holding tough at the back while Barrett sisters Lisa and Michelle also had fine outings. For Bandon, Clodagh Helen combined brilliantly with Buttimer and Karen Coombes in the Bandon defence, who had the distinction of going through the tournament without conceding a goal, while Acacia Taylor, Sarah Sullivan and Copithorne led the attacking effort with distinction. Bandon started both halves better but it was Crescent who engineered the better chances, almost all coming from corners with shots from play at an absolute minimum. Most fell to the inspirational Upton, as Ollie O’Connor’s side routinely effected a double switch at corner time to engineer her into close-range drag-flicking space. She cleared the bar with one such effort while Mellett saved two others, with Clodagh Helen’s excellent work as the left postwoman seeing her take a Clodagh Moloney bash off the line. Bandon forced as many corners (six) as the Limerick school but rarely got a clean shot away, the most dangerous of which saw Buttimer’s drag tipped over by Hickey. The game’s best chances from play were both engineered by Upton in the closing minutes. First, she surged 50 metres and played in Ciara Leahy, but she shot first-time from an angle with a spare player at the penalty spot, with Mellett saving neatly. And in the final minute of normal time Upton’s quick dribble off a dotted-line free took her into the circle – Mellett batted away the first shot, while Helen did brilliantly to redirect the flicked rebound over the crossbar. So to the extra time – non golden-goal – with Copithorne redirecting the best chance just off target after Burns’ disguised pass from the top. At the other end, Mellett saved a looping Michelle Barrett reverse sweep, Karen Coombes blocked down Moloney and Acacia Taylor provided a crucial interception on her reverse in her own circle. But the game had long looked destined for strokes, and so it was. Moloney and the Barrett sisters found the bottom corners for Crescent with Burns and Buttimer hitting the top corners for Bandon, before Coombes saw her effort slide the wrong side of the upright. But Power saw her effort saved by Mellett to keep it level before Helen, Upton and Taylor all converted with aplomb to send it to sudden death at 4-4. The captains stepped up once more as Burns and Upton converted, before Buttimer landed another for Bandon and a 6-5 lead. But Mellett’s reactions were on the money to deny Moloney – whose effort was headed just inside the keeper’s left-hand post – to spark wild celebrations among their supporters. CRESCENT: E Hickey (GK); K O’Brien, R Upton (capt), S O’Hanrahan, K FitzGerald, L Barrett, E Burke, S Woods, C Moloney, N Power, M Barrett. Rolling subs: M O’Malley, L Kearney, R Harbison, C Leahy, M Mawhinney. BANDON GRAMMAR: M Mellett (GK); S Houston, S Sullivan, L Copithorne, G Kingston, V Burns (capt), A Taylor, A O’Leary, L Buttimer, K Coombes, C Helen. Rolling subs: D Obialor, C Smyth, L Judge, L Nyhan. Umpires: B Madden & F Kelleher.