Eire Og Annacarty 1-16, Cashel KC 1-14.

Eire Og Annacarty ground out a hard-fought victory over Cashel KC in Dundrum last Sunday to reach the 2019 West Tipperary Senior Hurling Final against 2018 County champions Clonoulty\Rossmore. Tom Fox's 53rd minute goal the match winning score as Eire Og did just enough to grind out the victory.

After losing their opening West game to Clonoulty, Cashel needed to win to maintain interest in the West Championship, and made the early running by getting the opening points from Ross Bonnar from play and a free from Conn Bonnar inside the opening 5 minutes. Aidan Griffin pointed his first free on 6 minutes to open Eire Og's account. The game was held up for a number of minutes after Eire Og's Stephen O'Brien picked up an injury which led to his departure from the game, replaced by Paul Downey. Eoghan Connolly pointed on 16 minutes restoring Cashel's two point advantage only for Brian Fox and Aidan Griffin (free) to level matters by the 20th minute. A Conn Bonnar free restored Cashel's lead which was answered by points from Tom Fox and Seanie Ryan to put Eire Og into the lead for the first time in the 26th minute. A brace of Adrain Cummins points either side of another Aidan Griffin free had the sides level by first half injury time. Eire Og finished the half strongly with a brace of Aidan Griffin frees to leave the half-time score 0-08 to 0-06 in Eire Og's favour. A disappointing aspect of Eire Og's play was a number of shots dropping short into Cashel keeper Owen Quirke's hands, while Daragh Mooney had to be alert dealing with a couple of goalmouth scrambles at the other end.

Aidan Griffin continued the 2nd half as he finished the 1st with another pointed free, but Cashel hit back, with a brace of Conn Bonnar frees and an Aidan Cummins point to level matters inside the opening 5 minutes. Aidan Griffin (free) and Eoghan Connolly swapped points before Seanie Ryan and Aidan Griffin (free) restored Eire Og's two point advantage once more by the 44th minute. Ross Bonnar pulled one back for Cashel, only for Aidan Griffin to stretch the lead to three with a brace of points. After a couple of frees tailing wide Conn Bonnar landed another free to leave 2 between the teams with 10 minutes remaining. Then in the 53rd minute came the crucial break for Eire Og, as the Cashel defence failed to deal with a Daragh Mooney long-range free, Tom Fox drilled a low ground shot past Owen Quirke into the net putting Eire Og five points up. Brian Fox followed up with another point only for Eoghan Connolly to respond from a long-range free. Aidan Cummins had another point before a long-range free from Eoghan Connolly was dropped into the Eire Og goalmouth, sub Johnny Walsh appeared to get the final touch to flick into the net as injury time approached. Game back on once more, but Eire Og sub Ronan O'Brien had the final say, landing a point to finish the scoring as Eire Og held on until Mark Jordan's full-time whistle to reach the 2019 West Final leaving Cashel KC to fall back onto their Seamus O'Riain Cup campaign where they await the quarter-finals in the coming weeks.

Best for Eire Og were Daragh Mooney, Eoin Kennedy, Brian Fox, Conor O'Brien, Tom Fox, Seanie Ryan and Aidan Griffin.

Eire Og Annacarty: Daragh Mooney, Diarmaid Ryan, Eoin Kennedy, Stephen O'Brien, Kev Fox, Brian Fox (0-2), Paul Devlin, Paidi O'Dwyer, Conor O'Brien, Connie Bradshaw, Donal O'Dwyer, Eoin Bradshaw, Aidan Griffin (0-10, 9 frees), Tom Fox (1-1), Seanie Ryan (0-2). Subs: Paul Downey for Stephen O'Brien (inj, 10m), Dinny Crosse for Connie Bradshaw (49m), Ronan O'Brien (0-1) for Eoin Bradshaw (53m), Richard O'Doherty for Seanie Ryan (56m).

Referee: Mark Jordan, Golden\Kilfeakle.