O'Garney Park hosted the U13A Academy Final on Friday evening between the hosts Sixmilebridge and Ballyea. Both teams were undefeated in their journey to the final with the 'Bridge accounting for Doora Barefield, Inagh/Kilnamona and Kilmaley (Twice).

The game was played in perfect underfoot conditions and the sizeable crowd were treated to a wonderful spectacle of hurling over the hour. The 'Bridge opened the scoring early in the game through Cian Flannery from play.
Matthew Murphy with another point from play and a placed ball along with an Alex Russell point from play saw the Bridge lead 0-04 to 0-02 at Half Time.

While we thought the intensity of the first half would be hard to match, both teams upped it again in the second half and a point from Tomás Tubridy and a free from Murphy had the Bridge in the driving seat coming down the home straight. Lorcan Benoit was soundness personified between the posts and pulled of 2 excellent saves to keep our noses in front while the backs were tenacious in their efforts in keeping Ballyea at bay.
 
With one point between the teams the Bridge boys produced a wonderful piece of magic with a dummy sideline from Russell leading to the quick thinking Murphy running in and pointing from the sideline to put the Bridge 2 points up - Check out this video of the very same sideline trick by Waterford against Galway.

As the old saying goes about 2 points being a very dangerous lead this was exactly the case here as a goal mouth scramble in the 59th minute saw Ballyea raise the only green flag of the game and take the lead for the very first time.

While the Full Time whistle may have lead to a flood of tears from our boys it also signalled the end of one of the all time classic U13 Hurling finals. Well done to Ballyea on their win and hard luck to our boys who absolutely gave it their all. While we didn't win the cup the boys did win the hearts of the Bridge supporters who gave the boys a well deserved guard of honor and standing ovation as they left the field.

Scorers:
Matthew Murphy (0-04) (0-02 frees)
Cian Flannery (0-01)
Tomás Tubridy (0-01)
Alex Russell (0-01)

Team:
Lorcan Benoit
Padraig Collins, Christopher Healy, Luke McNamara;
James Reidy (VC), Darragh Toomey (C), Kielan O'Brien;
Matthew Murphy, Tomás Tubridy;
Donncha Heffernan, Cian Flannery, Carter Tuohy;
Padraig Chaplin, Alex Russell, Ronan Lynch

Subs:
Rhys Feehan for P Chaplin
JJ Quigley for K O'Brien
Jack Willis for D Heffernan