Rutledge holds nerve to keep Kilmacud Crokes flying high

KILMACUD Crokes claimed their second successive win of the Dublin ladies senior football championship as they got the best of Fingallians in Swords, 1-15 to 1-14.
The game had a later than planned kickoff owing to major traffic on the M50 caused by two crashes.
And the home side duly started the livelier, getting off to the better start with a score of 1-1 to 0-1 after 10 minutes. Much of the credit for this should go to Denise McKenna the Fins full forward who put in an outstanding performance throughout.
Crokes settled into the game and began to dominate the kickouts and notched up 1-5 without reply with Molly Lamb breaking through for the goal and also supplying the prolific full forward pairing of Michele Davoren and Eabha Rutledge.
Crokes finished out the half strongly but it was Fings who came out the stronger in the second half, scoring three unanswered points to narrow the score difference to one point.
From then on, the teams traded point for point with Davoren and Rutledge – who ended with 0-9 – doing most of the scoring for the visitors.
McKenna and former Dublin minor star Emma Colgan got kept their scoreboard active for the hosts. Then, deep into injury time, Fingalliians scored a superb long range point to tie the match up.
From the resulting kick-out, Crokes won possession and Rutledge made a darting run up the field and as she was bearing down on goal, she was hauled down.
It resulted in a sin bin for Fingallians’ Sinead Finnegan. Rutledge struck the free between the posts and relief was palpable for the visiting supporters as referee Angela Gallagher blew the final whistle.
Crokes showed some brave defending, particularly towards the end of the game with Aoife Kane, Ciara Regan and Phillipa Greene to the fore.
It means they head the group after two games with a break now until July 12 when they will host Na Fianna.