Golden day for WA in Games Finals

Gaelic Games - Perth 2006 - Day Six/Final Review

Western Australia took home the spoils on finals day, with the locals coming away with wins in the seniors’, women’s and minors’ grand finals, and only missing out on a clean sweep after New South Wales won a close tussle in the hurling.

Minors: WA Gold v WA Black Swans

With talent and enthusiasm in abundance this year, the minors competition was very close, and after each WA side had beaten each other once, this was the game that counted.

It was the Black Swans who got off to a good start with first touch of the ball and an early goal to Scott Lewis.

However WA Gold soon hit back with a goal from Keiran Hodge, to bring the scores level at 1-2 (5) 1-2 (5).

But the Black Swans kept up their edge to hold a slender 1-5 (8) to 1-3 (6) lead at halftime.

While play remained fairly even in the second half, WA Gold began to make a comeback, with a Daniel Donnelly goal boosting his side into the lead.

The Gold team continued to pressure the Black Swans goal which was well defended, with the goalie making some impressive saves.

Gold continued to build on its lead while the Black Swans couldn’t get the points they needed, with Gold taking away the 2-10 (16) to 1-8 (11) win at fulltime.

Hurling: WA v NSW

The end result didn’t indicate the closeness of the game with New South Wales coming from behind to take a 3-17 (26) to 3-8 (17) over WA in the hurling final.

In a high quality game, matchplay was mostly even, with WA captain Tom Femmon scoring an early goal, but New South Wales taking a two-point lead into halftime after a higher success rate with overs.

WA came back strongly in the first ten minutes of the second half, with Kieran Lyons and John Whelahan scoring a goal each for the home side to put their side three points ahead.

However New South Wales slowly came back to the fore, only closing the gap and taking over the lead in the last seven minutes, with goals from Donagh Duane and Seamus Collins giving New South Wales a strong finish for the win.

Women: WA v Qld

The Western Australian women became back-to-back champions when they took a solid 3-7 (16) to 0-4 (4) win over Queensland, whom the home side also met in the 2005 grand final.

However, although the Queenslanders took a beating from the WA side earlier in the week, the visitors kept up with the title favourites for most of the first half, only trailing 0-4 (4) to 1-4 (7) at the break.

In the second half, Queensland had trouble getting past the WA defence, who gained several turnovers, and went for the rest of the game without scoring a single point.

But the WA side only went from strength to strength, building up its lead with two more goals to become the 2006 champions by the final whistle.

Seniors: WA v Vic

A two-point win to the Western Australian senior side in extra time against Victoria was the icing on the cake in a fairytale ending to the Games for the host state.

In an extremely close tussle, the two sides remained neck-and-neck for much of the match, with Victoria taking the slight 0-6 to 0-5 lead into halftime.

A WA goal early in the second half gave the home side a boost, but the scores remained very close throughout the half, with the scores locked at 0-12 (12) and 1-9 (12) at the fulltime whistle, calling for extra time.

The Victorians pressured the goal area early on in extra time, but WA defended well to keep its championship hopes alive.

At the extra time halftime break the scores were still deadlocked, 0-13 (13) to 1-10 (13).

The game was close right to the end, with Olan Murphy providing critical points for the home side and Shane Kelly for the visitors.

However it was WA who was on the receiving end of several turnovers, and made the most of them to be ahead at the end of extra time with a score of 1-13 (16) to 0-14 (14), much to the jubilation of the home crowd.

All Photos credit and courtesy of Jenny Munro.

Related Article:

WA teams capitalise in Semi Finals (Sat Oct 7)