Peake Villa crowned Tipperary champions - St Michael's seven-year reign ended

Clonmel Credit Union Premier League

St Michael’s 0 – 0 Peake Villa

This game may have ended in stalemate, but the final score sparked wild celebrations among the travelling Thurles supporters of Peake Villa, as it meant they had finally dethroned the kings of Tipperary football, and brought to an end a seven year winning streak by St Michael’s that might take a long time before anyone comes close to again.
The crowd was large and expectant and the pitch was in beautiful condition when the two teams kicked off. And within two minutes produced a talking point, when Saints Ed O’Dwyer went marauding down the left wing, before crossing into the Peake Villa area, only to see not one, but two Saints’ players fall to the ground and their supporters baying for a penalty kick that never came.
The home side continued in this vein for the next five minutes, attacking at will and trying to overwhelm a visiting side who knew they were always likely to have to weather this storm. And weather it they did, finally creating their first chance in the 11th minute when after a series of corners, Ronan Maguire headed just wide, when a ball found him all alone at the back post.
This heralded a good spell of chances for the visiting side. In the 21st minute Pippy Carroll spun round the centre of the home defence before making Aido Walsh move briskly in the St Michael’s goal to snuff out the opportunity.
And six minutes later Walsh had to dive full stretch to palm away a rasping shot by Jack Ryan Casey, as the Thurles side began to turn the screw on their illustrious opponents.
That was the end of the chances until the final minutes of the first period. Two minutes from the break, the home defence got itself tied up in knots, and this allowed the effervescent Darragh Burn to fire a shot at Walsh, but again the vastly experienced shotstopper was up to the task.
And at the other end, the home side had two efforts, the first flying over the bar from a Shane Ryan free kick, and deep into time added on, Ed O’Dwyer also fired over from outside the area.
As the second half kicked off, there was some more urgency in the Saints play, and six minutes in a seemingly innocuous shot by Ed O’Dwyer was spilled by Willie Tierney in the Villa goal, and he was happy to see the follow up scrambled out for a corner kick by the alert Dale Loughnane.
The midfielders took control from then on, with hard but fair hits going in on both sides, and the next real chance fell to Sean Murphy of the home side, who found himself a long way from his normal full-back position to slide a shot just wide of the goal in the 68th minute.
Three minutes later, Ed O’Dwyer thought he had opened the scoring but again the visitors managed to get a toe on the ball and deflect it away for a corner.
But Peake Villa were always dangerous on the break, taking advantage of their speedy front line in the seventy first minute to set up Ryan Casey to skin the defence and draw the best save of the night from Walsh in the home goal, keeping the game level.
As the clock began to wind down the home side became increasingly desperate, and deep into time added on, with Walsh going upfield for a corner kick, Dale Loughnane sped up the left wing after a clearance and looked to have assured the win for Peake Villa but his shot rolled inches with of the far post.
In the end that missed chance, didn’t matter as shortly afterwards the referee blew the final whistle to bring an end to St Michael’s seven year run, and no one there on the night could or would begrudge the victory that has been a couple of years coming now to the Peake Villa club.

The same sides will do it all again on Friday, June 2, in the final league fixture of the season, but the result is now insignificant as the destination of title is decided.