St Joseph's Get a Draw in Difficult Conditions
13th July 2002 - San Francisco Senior Hurling Championship
St Josephs 7-15 Na Fianna 6-18

The setting for this second championship outing for San Jose was a cool afternoon at Beach Chalet playing fields in a part of Golden Gate park that is a little more sheltered than Kezar Stadium. The calmer conditions certainly had an effect on the scoreline with greater accuracy from both teams leading to a very high scoring game. However the surface of this short and wide field left something to be desired and that had an impact on the players’ ability to get the ball off the ground and into their hands.

St Josephs got off to a blistering start with the opening goal in the first ten seconds. However for the next ten minutes San Jose kept making a lot of stupid mistakes, mostly involving not being careful enough to get the ball lifted, and mostly being punished by Na Fianna who started creeping into the lead. The lead changed hands several times with both teams clocking up scores at a staggering rate. In the latter stages of the first half Josephs seemed to lock the door to their back lines with solid defending which kept Na Fianna firmly frozen out and under constant pressure.

With Na Fianna on the attack inside San Jose’s 18 yard line, Na Fianna were fouled and got a free. The Na Fianna forward retaliated but was still awarded the free regardless and converted it to an easy point.

Despite this San Jose led at half time by 5-8 to 3-9.

A few switches were made at half-time and the Silicon Valley men started the second half just like the first by getting a score in the first ten seconds. However the referee disallowed the point and restarted the game.

San Jose showed tremendous fighting spirit, although there were still a lot of mistakes being made in getting the ball lifted off this very bare surface. But once the ball was lifted they were able to overcome a determined Na Fianna defense. Most of Josephs’ mid-fielders were having to rely on arial delivery to get the sliothar up to the forwards, but some of the larger players were able to run through and finish it off in the net.

Later on San Jose were fouled in the Na Fianna goalmouth but the ball continued into the hands of another foward who was well positioned to score a goal, but the referee awarded a penalty which was put over the bar for St Josephs’ 12th point.

San Jose led most of the way through the second half, sometimes by as much as five points. The game ended with Josephs winning by 2 points and the curious sight of Na Fianna celebrating and congratulating each other. The game had been awarded to Na Fianna who supposedly won by a point.

After objections were raised by the San Jose camp the referee double checked his notebook and declared a draw.

Despite the difficult conditions St Josephs gave a strong performance to be proud of.

Match statistics