Castleknock 0-14; Raheny 0-11
After slugging it out with Dublin and All-Ireland club kingpins Kilmacud Crokes last year before losing in a penalty shoot out, many thought that Raheny, powered by stalwart Dubs duo Brian Fenton and Brian Howard and former Mayo goalkeeper Rob Hennelly, would be the ones to go all the way in this year's Dublin SF championship.
Instead, they find themselves the victims of complacency as they allowed 14-man neighbors Castleknock, who had cornerback Tom Quinn sent off within five minutes of the throw-in, come back from a 0-6 to 0-2 deficit to outfight them on the home straight and end up winning at Parnell Park by three points.
Full marks to Ciaran Kilkenny, the Dublin star and his committed band who refused to bow the knee when it looked bleak midway through the first half and knuckled down to put in such an honest shift that Raheny had no answer to their greater hunger.
It is a measure of the 14 men that they forced themselves back into the game by landing seven points without reply with Kilkenny, Luke Swan and Ger McDermottroe all raising white flags.
Raheny will be kicking themselves all this week as they only needed a draw or a win to progress and instead they had little or nothing to offer in terms of getting back into the game whereas Castleknock, after going a point up, added late scores from Ben Galvin and Swan to go three clear into injury time.
Even then there was one last chance for Raheny when county man Brian Howard went forward and had a great chance of goal. His left-footed drive seemed certain to find the back of the net but a magnificent save by Morven Connolly thwarted the multi- All Ireland winner at the death.
The reward for this hard-earned win is a quarter-final clash with Cuala, who destroyed Fingallians by 25 points (4-21 to 0-08) on Saturday as All-Star Con O'Callaghan notched 2-6 as he produced another starring role.
Castleknock: M Connolly; T Quinn, R O’Shea, T Shields; A Hughes, R Shaw, T Lowe; K Stephenson, S Forker; G McDermottroe, C Chawke, C Kilkenny; N Kilroy, L Swan, E Walsh. Subs: C Murphy for Lowe (h-t), E Sawyer for Forker (37), D Leonard for Hughes (43), B Galvin for Kilroy (48), T McDaniel for Chawke (56).
Raheny: R Hennelly; B McHugh, S MacMahon, G McNamara; A McAweeney, B Howard, C Hehir; B Fenton, B Talty; A McLoughlin, P Reid, C Baldwin; C Ivers, D Lunney, S Grenham. Subs: D Shatwell for MacMahon (26), J O’Kane for McLoughlin (37), R Real for Baldwin (43), C Foran for Reid (53), K McGuirk for Ivers (63).
