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Weekend Roundup: Dublin and Kilkenny make final

First up at the Longford venue was the meeting of Kilkenny pairing Ciarán Neary and the evergreen Ducksy Walsh who took on the youthful Limerick duo of CJ Fitzpatrick and Evan Murphy. Just 24 hours earlier Murphy had competed in the Minor Doubles Semi Final before making the big step up to Senior semi final action on Saturday. 

The young Broadford man partnered by the impressive CJ Fitzpatrick showed no fear as they took the game to their more experienced Kilkenny opponents throughout and a ding dong battle in the first saw the Limerick lads lead 19-16 before the Kilkenny duo managed to reel them in and in the end the experience of Walsh saw the men from the marble city over the line to take the first 21-19. 

Limerick led early in the second opening a 5-2 lead and then a 9-8 lead before Kilkenny edged in front to lead 12-9. At this point both sides swapped serves numerous times as both sets of players struggled to get the points needed to gain momentum and take the initiative in game 2. Neary and Walsh extended their lead to 14-9 adn it looked like the Limerick challenge would falter but credit to them they never gave up and narrowed the gap once more with the score now at 14-12 to Kilkenny. From here the Kilkenny duo took control and despite Limerick rallying briefly to reach 14 points the last say was Walsh's as a right corner kill saw the 49 year old and his young partner Neary into the final on Saturday 17th October.

And there they will face the Dublin pairing of Eoin Kennedy and Carl Browne after a two and a half hour marathon match saw the pair defeat the Mayo pairing of Dessie Keegan and Joe McCann 21-14, 18-21, 21- 11 in the other Semi-Final. 

The first game was extremely tight at the start with Dublin and Mayo exchanging aces and tying the score several times until Keegan and McCann drew away to lead 14-9. Kennedy and Browne refused to panic however and gradually gained some momentum to tie the score at 14 each to the cheers of the spectators. With some excellent serving and confident killing the Dublin pair went into overdrive running out the first game 21-14. 

The second game started off with Mayo leading but try as they might to pull away Dublin leveled at six and again at nine. Despite the Dublin pair leading 11-9 Mayo fought back and managed to lead 16-13 and then 19-13. The Dublin pairing mounted a fightback and soon Mayo found themselves at 19-18 and in real danger of losing both the game and the match. To their credit they showed great composure to reset and capture the points needed to force a third game and win game 2 on a 21-19 scoreline. 

The third game tie-breaker to 21 aces fully lived up to the expectations of the spectators as both pairs continued to fight for supremacy. It was tight and tense at the start with scores at 6-6 when Mayo edged ahead 9-6. A fantastic kill from Kennedy ending a rally of more than 50 shots drew great cheers from the crowd as the Dublin pair fought back to 9-9. Dublin then took control and with a blitz of scores stretched their lead to 15-9 before Mayo closed the gap to 15-11. Despite having serve numerous times the Mayo men failed to make it count and with Browne appearing to cramp it was left to Kennedy to lead the way and he did so in style leading Dublin to 19-11. Try as they might Mayo could not muster another comeback and the Dublin duo closed out the game 21-11 to end a gruelling 2 and a half hour game which left players exhausted and spectators enthralled. 

The win means that Kennedy is now through to both Singles and Doubles Senior finals, a feat which has not been achieved for several years. Indeed it was Kennedy himself back in 2010 who was the last to reach both finals in the same year.