ST JOHN’S secured a historic Junior C Football title after a comprehensive 2-9 to 1-5 victory over Ballyphehane last weekend.

This club, based in the townlands of Aubane and Kildorrery close to Millstreet, were worthy winners after a blistering opening which saw them lead 2-6 to 0-1 after 20 minutes.

St John’s selector Joe Hayes was thrilled with their display.

“This was a fantastic win; for a couple of years we have been trying to win this competition.

“We have had semi-final losses and a final defeat to Lough Rovers.

“For the guys this was the competition they really wanted to win and they have worked hard at the start of the year and all throughout the campaign.

“It was fantastic to play here in Páirc Uí Rinn in front of a big, huge crowd and to come out with the win.

“We targeted a good start; if we get ahead in the game we finish strong as well.

“We did not want to be chasing this game and we knew there was going to be a big amount of support.

“For Ballyphehane we needed to make a statement and get on top of this game and we knew we had guys to come off the bench as well to finish the game strong.

“We hit a bit of a rocky spell as Ballyphehane came at us at the start of the second half as we knew they would.

“We made the changes and we responded and got the scores at the end.

“As I said this was a competition we wanted to win because the Junior B County was organised a few years back and it is a great competition for the smaller clubs. There were a lot of teams in it and they broke it down into two lots of 12 where you have some bigger teams in the B and the smaller teams are in the C competition which is where we are,” he said.

“They wanted to win this; we have got to semi-finals and got to a final. We won a league title against Kilmurry last year and we have won Duhallow championships as well.

“We are now looking forward to the Duhallow championships and the county league also but this was the one we wanted to win.”