There was heartbreak for the Midlands in the Kennedy Cup final in University of Limerick this afternoon.
They faced Galway in the showpiece event and conceded goals in either half in a 2-1 defeat.
Danny Waldron grabbed a goal back for the Midlands before the end but it wasn’t enough.
Reaching the final itself was a historic achievement for the side who are managed by Mountmellick’s John Nelson.
Portlaoise duo Sean Conka and David Timmons plus Mountmellick’s duo Eoghan Nelson and David O’Reilly were also part of the panel.
To get to this stage, they defeated South Tipperary 6-0 and then drew with Limerick County to top their group.
Mark Monaghan of Tullamore Town gave Midlands the lead but Cork equalised five minutes from the end to send the game to penalties.
As the rain poured, David Timmons and Sean Conka were among the succesful penalty takers as Midlands won 4-2.
That set up a semi final with West Cork yesterday where a Bobby Lenehan wonder strike was the difference.
While Midlands suffered heartbreak, Kilkenny, who had four Laois lads on their team, ended the week with silverware.
Kilkenny contain four Laois players in their squad – Sean Dempsey, twins Joey and Conor Dempsey from the Lions AFC, Durrow and Conor Hickey from Clover United in Rathdowney.
They were in Group 1 where they began with a 3-0 win over WWEC.
Joey and Sean Dempsey were on the scoresheet as Kilkenny came from 2-0 down to draw with Limerick Desmond in Round 2.
That comeback was crucial as they later defeated Carlow 3-1 and topped the group, like Midlands, on goal difference.
That put them through to the Cup quarter final where they faced Galway in a simply crazy game.
Galway had a man sent off in the first half with Kilkenny scoring either side of half time through Jack Mulcahy to go 2-0 up.
Galway replied with a penalty but Kilkenny restored their three goal lead via Andrejs Kirilovs.
It stayed like that until injury time with Galway pulling one back in the first minute of it.
Kilkenny then had their keeper Danny O’Neill sent off for a second yellow card and from the resulting penalty, Ruairi Flaherty sent the game to spot kicks.
Here, Galway just had all of the momentum and they eventually won 5-4 – with Galway as we now know going on to win the competition.
All of the beaten quarter finalists go into the Plate competition with Kilkenny recovering from that set back in the best way possible.
They faced Cork in the semi final on Thursday with Durrow’s Sean Dempsey scoring twice in a 3-1 win.
That set up a Plate final against Kerry today where a second half Andrejs Kirilovs penalty sealed a 1-0 win.
