The Go-Ahead Ireland Senior 2 Hurling Final between Faughs and Ballyboden's Bs takes place this Saturday in O'Toole Park.

We'll just go through a run down of how they each got to the final.

Faughs: 

Faughs have been motoring well right from the group stage, where they finished top of the group with 5 wins from 5 and a points difference of +39.

• Round 1 - Was A tight enough win over Naombh Mearnog, where both teams scored 15 scores, the Faughs' goal making the difference.
• Round 2 - they again scored the same number of times as Castleknock, with 24 scores each but again Faughs got the all important goal.
• Round 3 - was another tight enough game v Thomas Davis, which they won 1-21 to 1-18 - conceding their first goal in threr rounds.
• Round 4 - saw a bit of a shellacking of and under-strength Fingallians on a scoreline of 3-31 to 0-13.
• Round 5 - was a good win over NaFianna 2-18 to 1-16

Ballyboden Bs:

Compared to Faughs above, Boden Bs had an altogether more difficult time in Group 1, finishing up in third place with 3 wins and 2 losses from their five games.

• Round 1 - a Six point win v BSJ, both sides scoring 2 goals 2-22 - 2-16
• Round 2 - Another 2 goals for Boden, helping to beat arch rivals 2-23 - Crokes 3-18
• Round 3 - Beaten by Erins Isle 2-22 to 2-17
• Round 4 - Beat Clontarf 1-24 to 2-17 - scoring and conceding a lot of goals.
• Round 5 - Beaten well by Raheny 3-15 to 1-14

Onto the knockout stages: 

Quarter-Finals:

Faughs:

In the quarter-final, Faughs met an in-form Balinteer St.Johns and came out winners on 1-24 to 1-18. The Round-up of the game from the Dublin County Board was:

The final spot in the last four was claimed by a Faughs side who took control after the break on their way to a 1-24 to 1-18 win against Ballinteer St John’s.

The visitors will rue a number of poor wides in the opening-half but they still managed to eke out a 0-12 to 0-11 interval lead thanks mainly to the free-taking of Tommy Cullen and three points from play by Rob Aherne.

The hosts continued to add to their tally through the scoring returns of James O’Brien and Conor Brennan while goalkeeper Eoghan McNamara making some crucial interventions throughout.

St John’s continued to battle through the efforts of Tom Aherne, Iain Ó hEithir, Brian Cahill and Sean Mulligan but their contributions and a late goal by Seamus Fenton failed to spare them their fate.  

Ballyboden Bs:

Had a great battle with Castleknock coming out on top Ballyboden St Enda’s 1-19 - Castleknock 2-15

The report from Dublin GAA said:

The only team to taste success on their travels were Ballyboden St Enda’s, who completed a positive day for the club when edging Castleknock by 1-19 to 2-15 at Somerton Park.

In what was a strong team performance by the visitors, the likes of Liam Dargan, Jono O’Driscoll, Fionn Maguire, Kevin Desmond and Darragh Ormsby took the game to Castleknock throughout.

O’Driscoll top scored with ten points and with Ormsby scoring an impressive 1-6, St Enda’s did just enough to prevail thanks to a point apiece by James Roche, Shane Kennedy and Darragh Smyth.  

Semi-Finals:

Faughs:

Faughs had a great win in the semi-finals v a Raheny team which had been putting up big scores in the previous few games - a last minute James O'Brien free clinched it for Faughs 1-16 Raheny 0-18.

Ballyboden Bs:

An first half hatrick of goals helped Boden Bees overcome Erins Isle 3-12 to 0-20 in what has to be considered a great win asn Isles had been moving well up till then.

Read up on Both Semi-Finals here: 

https://www.dublingaa.ie/news/round-up-of-the-go-ahead-ireland-senior-2-hurling-semi-finals

Teams Are In:

For me James O'Brien ought to be on the Dublin panel.

Predictions

Very hard to call, given the mauling Boden received from Raheny in the last round of the group stages, i didn't really expect them to overcome Castleknock and then to beat Isles. The salvo of three goals in the first half set them up and Isles lost a player to a red card just after halftime, but they still nearly managed a comeback.

Faughs by contrast, dominated the group stages. They dont seem to score or concede as many goals as Boden, so if they can hold Boden to 2 or fewer goals, then possibly they'll have too much for them? 

Verdict: Faughs by 3

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Promotion play-off:

A side note to the final is a promotion play-off place as Boden cannot be promoted into the SHC1 as their A team is already there, so we have a promotion play-off between Raheny and Erin's Isle, which could be an absolute belter ...