St Martin's eventually find enough to grind down Naas

Naas 0-13 St Martin's 1-15

St Martin's proved the sharper, more finely tuned outfit as they overcame Naas to clinch a place in the last four of the Leinster SHC after a hard-fought battle at Cedral St Conleth’s Park.

The Wexford champions, benefitting perhaps from a higher-quality local championship, always looked the likelier winners but found it hard to shake off the six-in-a-row Kildare champions.

Naas, semi-finalists in the province in each of the last two years, eased through a Kildare championship with double-digit wins in all their games. Despite the step up in class and intensity, they battled hard until a penalty two minutes from time from Jack O’Connor finally gave St Martin’s breathing space.

O’Connor won the penalty himself with a brilliant high catch and as he closed in on goal he was tripped by Naas full-back Richie Hogan. O’Connor rifled the penalty emphatically to the right of goalkeeper Cormac Gallagher.

The flawless free-taking of Jack’s brother Rory O’Connor had helped St Martin’s to a four-point half-time advantage, the corner forward contributing eight points to their 0-10 to 0-6 lead. Indeed, it wasn’t until the winners managed their first point from play, a Darren Codd effort.

For Naas, with tightly marked leading scorer Jack Sheridan and the influential Simon Leacy perhaps not as prominent as they would have wished, were thankful to the lively Cian Boran in the opening period, the centre-forward contributing two points.

To their immense credit, Naas did rally after the interval and with Sheridan accurate from place balls they were within two points by the 42nd minute having outscored their opponents by three points to one in that period.

Shortly after that Rory O’Connor missed his first free of the