St Joseph's Secondary School, Foxford was crowned FAI Schools John Murphy National Cup champions in Athlone on Wednesday afternoon.
The John Murphy Cup is the u19 senior B competition and the team saw off the challenge of Kilkenny outfit Greenan College, who were the defending champions at the grade 3-2 at the end of a thrilling encounter.
The Foxford boys took the lead just after the half-hour mark when Conor FLynn's rocket of an effort took a deflection and ended up in the back of the net. The Kilkenny side struck back not long after with Colm Whelan sticking away a penalty to level the game up at 1-1. However St Joseph's rallied and went back in front again before the break when the impressive Caolan Hopkins bagged a second goal to send the Mayo boys in, leading 2-1 at the short whistle.
On the hour mark Hopkins grabbed his second goal of the afternoon heading in a Lorcan Towey corner to put their side two goals to the good. Ten minutes later it was almost 4-1 but Eoin Prendergast saw his effort come back off the post. With a quarter of an hour left the gap was cut back to the bare minimum when Jack Barcoe finished from close range and an edgy end to the game was in store for the Foxford lads. Two minutes later the Kilkenny boys had the ball in the back of the net again, but thankfully for St Joseph's, Jack Holden's strike was ruled out for offside and St Joseph's held on for a memorable win.
