**Match Report** Kevin Barry's vs. Young Irelander's (Championship Game 1: Thurs August 13th)

Due to bad weather this Championship fixture had to be postponed to a Thursday evening. This was tough on both teams but they managed to field very strong line-up for the first game in the Philly championship series. 

This game started slowly for both teams with a lot of persistent fouling slowing the game down. The Barry's finally got on the board with fine scores from P.J Lavery and "wee" Dave McCarthy. This settled the Barry's and they started to play the flowing football witnessed in previous fixtures. Then out of the blue P.J Lavery went on the rampage. After being fouled constantly by the Young Irelander's back line Lavery decided to take matters into his own hands. Within the space of 5 minutes he had the ball in the back of the Young Irelander's net 3 times. This totally crushed the Irelander's and pretty much put the nails in their coffin for this game. But all credit to the Young Irelander's they battled back and took some fine scores to start to get back into the mix. The Barry's wanted to nip this fight back in the bud quickly and they did so through Dave McCarthy who slotted over 2 fine free kicks from big distances. 

The second half proved to be a stop start affair and tempers were now wearing thin. Young Irelander's had just scored a goal and their tails were up. Again persistent fouling really put a dampener on this game and referee Paul McCarthy was quickly losing patience. He sent off 3 men in the second half ( 2 Barry's, 1 Young Irelander's), all for second bookable offences, proving that that this constant fouling was not going unnoticed. This now meant that the Barry's were playing most of the second half with 11 men. Strategic moves by Barry's manager's Gerard Dillon and Gary Rocks helped the Barry's stretch the game a bit. They were now playing keep ball and this frustrated the Young Irelander's. The game finally trickled out and the Barry's made sure of the victory through points from half forward Petey McElhill and big midfielder Mark Tierney.  The Barry's deserved the win and they now needed one more to clinch the 2009 Philadelphia Championship.

Final Score:

Kevin Barry's (3-7)

Young Irelander's (1-6)

Barry's Scorers:

P.J Lavery (3-1), "Wee" Dave McCarthy (0-4), Petey McElhill (0-1), Mark Tierney (0-1)