Gusserane 0-13 St. James’ 0-12

Sam Wall was the hero as Gusserane finally cracked determined St. James’ in Saturday’s second-round Tom Doyle Supplies county senior football championship Group B duel at O’Kennedy Park, New Ross.

Gusserane had twice succumbed to the Ramsgrange men since the ‘Jimmies’ emerged from the intermediate ranks in 2014, and one of those victories was on the way to St. James’ immediately adding the senior championship crown in 2015.

Gusserane succeeded them as senior champions in 2016, and the Pat Conway-managed blue-and-gold simply refused on Saturday to succumb to a third defeat to the ‘Jimmies’.

Assistance of the slight wind aided Gusserane as they shot clear by 0-7 to 0-1 after 25 minutes with scores from Páraic Conway (2), Seán ‘Mini’ Ryan (2), Cillian Kehoe, John Roche and Mark Rossiter.

But young Darragh Lyons pegged back two late frees to have Fran Fitzhenry’s ‘Jimmies’ back within 0-7 to 0-3 at half-time.

The fight-back was extended with early second-half points from Greg Doyle and Darragh Lyons (free).

Gusserane appeared to be pulling clear again when Mark Rossiter (2) and Seán Ryan eased the O’Rahilly’s into a double-scores lead on 37 minutes (0-10 to 0-5).

However, St. James’ then mounted a serious shift in momentum as they kicked seven points without reply to eventually turn the tables and take a 0-12 to 0-10 lead after 51 minutes.

Darragh Lyons’ tidy free-taking remained key during that spell as he popped over two more points from placed-balls, while Mark Molloy launched a huge score from play and Adam Parle chipped in too, before Brian Molloy fired three points to suddenly put long-time leaders Gusserane two points into arrears.

But Gusserane weren’t tolerating another setback against the ‘Jimmies’, and they engineered a succession of late scores from the boots of Shane Cullen, Cillian Kehoe and the ultimately decisive kick from Sam Wall to snatch the vital spoils.

Indeed, both sides had lost out in round-one, and St. James’ will be hoping to have the talismanic Kevin O’Grady back when the county championship resumes in late-July/early-August as O’Grady is currently preparing to aid New York in the upcoming Connacht senior football championship against Leitrim.