St Brigid's see off Castlehaven to book AIB All-Ireland Club SFC final spot

St Brigid's are through to their third AIB All-Ireland Senior Club Football Championship final after overcoming Castlehaven 1-11 to 0-10 at Thurles.

The Connacht champions survived a second-half attempted comeback by their west Cork opponents, who were aiming to play at Croke Park at the fourth time of asking after losing semi-finals in 1990, 1995, and 1998.

Any attempt to correct that record was undone by a Roscommon side led by All-Star nominee Ben O'Carroll, who kicked 0-03 for his club.

St Brigid's went into the game having scored 13 goals in their last five championship outings and they showed that lust for scores with a young side featuring three members of the Rossies team that made it to the 2021 All-Ireland U20 final and lost to Offaly.

O’Carroll was one of those; along with Ruaidhrí Fallon and Robbie Dolan, and together they helped the team race into a 1-05 to 0-02 lead.

It all started with a brace of Bobby Nugent points, with a white flag for Brian Derwin in between.

After Brian Hurley opened Castlehaven’s account for the afternoon, O’Carroll got his first of the game and the Cork star responded by kicking over a '45.

At 0-04 to 0-02, it was evenly balanced. Then Dolan burrowed through and created a scoring opportunity for Derwin, and he used it to hit the back of the net in the 13th minute.

Ciarán Sugrue followed that up by splitting the posts and St Brigid's led 1-05 to 0-02 and all the pressure was on Castlehaven, and they hit back with white flags raised by Cathal Maguire and Brian Hurley.

The pair helped their club finish the first half with a flourish and it was 1-07 to 0-06 at the interval.

Castlehaven came out from the break and Brian Hurley scored twice in quick succession, and St Brigid's four-point cushion