Villa 2; Blackcastle United 1
The Villa are through to the Munster Cup quarter-finals where they will have home advantage once again, this time against Nenagh Celtic following a thrilling win over Blackcastle United at Connors Park on Sunday afternoon.
Tramore and Carrick from the Waterford League are also still standing in this competition and they are on course to meet each other in the other side of the semi-final draw.
The Villa deserved to win but they had to pull out all the stops to get the better of the North Tipperary men who ejected St Michaels in the previous round.
Villa took the lead in brilliant style on 10 minutes. Simon Keane laid the ball off to Stephen Murphy and he in turn passed to Paul Omotoso who turned quickly inside the left edge of the penalty area before drilling the ball past goalkeeper Dean Loughlin into the bottom corner.
Just before the interval Villa ’keeper Dean Purcell made a brilliant save from Johnny Coleman as the visitors finished the first half the stronger.
And it was no surprise when 6’4 sub Chris Eid levelled the game on 57 minutes, heading home a cross as the Villa defenders stood off.
The Villa were dreadfully unlucky not to regain the lead after 64 minutes when Stephen Murphy’s side-footer came back off the inside of an upright.
But the winner arrived on 75 minutes. Ian Cantwell floated in a free kick which was not dealt with and Eoin Ginnitty rose like a bird of prey to head home from 10 yards. Three minutes later Jimmy Barry’s close range header came crashing back off the crossbar and with two minutes to go with goalkeeper Dean Loughlin shown the red card by referee Noel O’Keeffe for taking down Kenny Purcell. Blackcastle left-full Shane Scully stood in and produced a wonderful save from Danny Walsh. Six minutes of stoppage time were played but Villa withstood some serious pressure.
