The Club Championship hots up this week as the Go Ahead Dublin Football Championships get underway this weekend.  

The St Brendan’s Football 1st XV, sponsored by Dynamic Safety Solutions played their first game of the Go Ahead Junior 1 Club Championship against Ballyfermot De La Salle on a sunny Sunday Morning in Longmeadows. 

The away side opened the scoring with a close range free in 70 seconds into the contest, but soon The Dark Force grabbed the match by the scruff of the neck. 

Stephen Durkan won a turnover and passed to Diarmuid ‘Dempsey’ Cooney who kicked a long ball into the square. With the sun in his eyes, The Return of the Mack Cillian Morrison couldn’t get the Advance Mark, but still managed to turn and shoot. Calls for a foot block from the goalkeeper was ignored but Ritchie ‘Blackmore’ O’Hara was on hand to pick up the ball and shoot into the back of the net for his first Championship goal. O’Hara celebrated that goal by posing like Türkiye’s Olympic Silver Medal winning Sports Shooter Yusuf Dukiç. 

Another turnover, this time from The Golden Mullet Conall Horgan and pass to Kevin ‘76’ Berry and finally to Nicky McCafferty and the Antrim Adventure Man made no mistake with the point. This point would be the first of a hat trick of points for McCafferty as his second point came from a free in after collecting Berry’s sideline ball. 

Another St Brendan’s turnover took place Downtown by Conor ‘Tattenham Corner’ McGeough and pass to Micheal ‘The DJ’ Cahill and finally to McCafferty and Boom Shakalaka his hat trick of points was complete, 1-3 to 0-1 after 11 minutes.  

The Castlebar Mitchell Colm Harte ensured the full back line all won turnovers which converted into points before the end of the first quarter when his turnover was pointed by Cooney with Stephen Durkan supplying the final pass. 

17:05 gone in the first half and Brendan Brogan made it 1-5 with a point in which his fellow Sligo Man Durkan again supplied the final pass. 

McGeough and Cahill teamed up again with another turnover from the former and long ball from the latter into Morrisson who pole vaulted as high as Olympic Pole Vault Champion Armand Duplantis to win the Advance Mark and take his score successfully. 

St Brendan’s had 13 men behind the ball and Ballyfermot kept kicking ball to one another like Galway in the All-Ireland Final, but John Burns and Niall Pender produced a Tyrone style blanket defence to win the free out. In the end Morrisson drew the foul and pointed his free in to make it 1-7 to 0-2. 

A Ballyfermot free in hit the frame of the upright, Cooney and Cahill combined to set up Nicky McCafferty for his fourth point of the morning with an outrageous shot that still went over the bar. 

After scoring points from Advanced Marks and Free in’s, Cillian Morrisson scored this third point from open play after a John Burns pass. Both men combined with Kevin Berry for the 10th point, Morrisson was thwarted when in a good position, after getting attended to and take in water, The Return of The Mack pointed his free. Ballyfermot spotted a lapse in the Brendan’s defence and a goal shot was blasted wide, something John ‘Tesla’ Tuffy was furious about in his half time team talk with St Brendan’s leading 1-10 to 0-2. 

The away side started the second half exactly the way they started the first with a point from a free in, but Morrisson replied a minute later with a point from play. 

The match got a bit disjointed when a Ballyfermot player was sent off for lashing out. Then this writer unleashed his inner Chris Kamara by missing a second Ballyfermot red card 10 minutes later when thinking they were bringing on a sub! 

Despite being down to 13 men, Ballyfermot did pull two points back, and with 10 minutes to go Cillian Morrisson got the scoring back up and running with a 13-meter shot from open play in with the two subs, John Maguire and Free Now Franklin O’Reilly were involved in the build-up.  

St Brendan’s hit a brace of wides as they were beginning to lose concentration with the unassailable lead, and this got worse when Ballyfermot beat Mr Twitter Eoghan Clogher for goal with 7 minutes to go, was an unlikely comeback on the cards? 

Not so said third substitute Cathal Burns who set up McCafferty for his fifth point as Ballyfermot spent the rest of the match with 12 men after a player got black carded. 

But St Brendan’s got their act together with a good team score involving Liam ‘Oisin Mullin’ Atkinson, Colm Harte and Ritchie O’Hara who set up McCafferty for his sixth and his sides 14th and final point of the contest, as The Dark Force got the victory they needed, not the most vintage of performances, but a win nonetheless going into Round 2 of the Junior 1 Club Championship in two weeks time against St James Gaels An Caislean. 

Final Score from Longmeadows, St Brendan’s 1-14 Ballyfermot De La Salle 1-5.