\n Christian Brothers College, Cork 1 Col\u00e1iste Bhaile Chl\u00e1ir, Claregalway\u00a0\n <\/p>\n
\n (CBC win 4-2 on penalties)\u00a0\n <\/p>\n
Christians were crowned 2026 FAI Schools Senior National Cup champions for the first time after beating Col\u00e1iste Bhaile Chl\u00e1ir in a penalty shootout in Mounthawk Park, Tralee.<\/p>\n
Calum Carroll scored the winning penalty after Finn Dalton, Donal O\u2019Connor and Max Murphy all converted before him. CBC keeper Harry Walsh stood tall to deny the Claregalway School on two occasions.<\/p>\n
The game wasn\u2019t dominated by either side, with momentum swinging back and forth on several occasions on a sundrenched Mounthawk Park.<\/p>\n
Both sides wasted several scoring chances in the first half. David McLaughlin, Jack Kelly and Kalen Ainsworthy threatened for the Galway men, while Conor Burke came close to the opening goal for CBC on a couple of occasions.<\/p>\n
CBC eventually broke the deadlock midway through the second half after a sustained spell of pressure. The fourth phase of the attack saw Hickey\u2019s shot deflect to Aidan O\u2019Shea coming off the right wing, and the sub, only on the field 10 minutes, fired into the roof of the net.<\/p>\n
Col\u00e1iste Bhaile Chl\u00e1ir looked a bit shaky after going behind but used the second water after 70 minutes to regroup. A long free kick into the box was headed backwards, which took his keeper out of the equation, leaving Cathal Heavey the simple task of slotting into the gaping net.<\/p>\n
Five minutes into the extra-time period, CBC was reduced to 10 when goalscorer O\u2019Shea picked up a second yellow.<\/p>\n
Both sides had chances to win it. Liam Lynch forced O\u2019Gorman into a big save minutes after coming on, whilst at the other end, McLaughlin saw his left-footed shot come back off the foot of the post, so the game had to be decided on penalties.<\/p>\n
Both captains were first to step up. Jack Kelly scored for Bhaile Chl\u00e1ir, while Finn Dalton made no mistake for CBC. Next up for Claregalway was Ruairi Flaherty, who saw his left-footed attempt saved by Walsh to give CBC.<\/p>\n
Donal O\u2019Connor, David McLaughlin, and Max Murphy all converted before Daniel Murphy took what would be Bhaile Chl\u00e1ir\u2019s last penalty, saved down the middle by Walsh leaving Calum Carroll the chance to become the hero. He smashed home as the jubilant celebrations began from the CBC fans.<\/p>\n
\n CBC:\u00a0Harry Walsh; Emmet Coughlan, Larry Butler, Max Murphy, Ben Phillips; Finn Dalton (c), Liam Lynch; Darragh Morley, Conor Burke, Tom Hickey; Donal O\u2019Connor.<\/p>\n
Subs: Aidan O\u2019Shea for Morley (56), Shane Kavanagh for Hickey (75), David Callanan for Burke (96), Calum Carroll for Philips (103).\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n COL\u00c1ISTE BHAILE CHL\u00c1IR: Charlie Greene, Matthew Casey, Ruair\u00ed Flaherty, Darragh Killian, Daniel Murphy, Michael Bradbury, Jack Kelly (c), Dylan Rabbitte, David McLoughlin, Cathal Heavey, Kalen Ainsworth.<\/p>\n
\n Subs: Evan McDonagh for Heavey (86), Aaron O\u2019Gorman for Charlie Greene (110 inj).<\/p>\n
\n Referee: Darren O\u2019Rourke.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Christian Brothers College, Cork 1 Col\u00e1iste Bhaile Chl\u00e1ir, Claregalway\u00a0 (CBC win 4-2 on penalties)\u00a0 Christians were crowned 2026…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":355246,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[16250,61,60,112],"class_list":["post-355245","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-cork-soccer","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355245","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=355245"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355245\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/355246"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=355245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=355245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=355245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}