It wasn’t St Eunan’s day in the Kukri Sports Ulster Minor Football final, at St Paul’s in Belfast as they failed to match a bigger and stronger Crossmaglen Rangers side that took the Jimmy McConville Trophy.
St Eunan’s 1-06 Crossmaglen Rangers 4-12
By Tony McGee
The game was played in steady rain through with a diagonal breeze. The winners concentrated on using the long ball, to mater the conditions, while the losers played the passing game, short game which cut little dash with the vigilant and strong Crossmaglen defence.
The absence of the injured Rory Carr was solely felt by the Donegal champions who played second best for most of the game against the pairing of Stephen Moore and Oisin O’Neill, who won the Ann-Marie Donnelly Memorial Trophy as Man-of-the-Final. Carr’s towering presence would have made a huge difference but would hardly have made up the 15 points deficit.
St Eunan’s won an amount of possession, in the opening quarter, but it was Crossmaglen who led 0-4 to 0-0 at that stage and it wasn’t until the 17th minute that the Donegal representatives opened their account.
Niall O’Donnell, their best attacker, flicked the ball through to hard-working half-back Brian MacIntyre and he shot to the net. However, that goal was wiped out within a minute when Michael McCabe found the net at the other end before Ruairi O’Neill added a point, to leave the Armagh team 1-5 to 1-0 ahead after 20 minutes.
O’Donnell kicked over the first free-kick of the afternoon two minutes later before Ruairi and Oisin O’Neill fired over points from midfield to offset scores by Oisin O’Boyle and O’Donnell (both frees).
Four minutes into injury time came a sucker punch to Letterkenny. Tall ‘keeper Matthew Gallagher rose to punch away a cross but collided with two Crossmaglen players with a penalty kick awarded. Oisin O’Neill blasted the ball home to leave his team 2-7 to 1-4 ahead at the break.
The winners opened the second half with two points and by the 48th minute they had added two more as the game slid away from St Eunan’s, who only managed two points from sub Evan McCrory but that was far from enough to make a dent on the result.
A goalmouth ball fell at the feet of McCabe who knocked it over the line for his second goal, on 57 minutes, and there was no way back for the losers who also lost O’Donnell on a black card on the hour.
Crossmaglen: J McEvoy; R McKeever, S Farrelly, A Smylie; D Cunningham (0-1), C Dillon, C Donnelly; mS Moore (0-1), O O’Neill (1-3, 1-0 penalty, 0-1 free); R O’Neill (0-3), C O’Connor (0-1), J McKeever; M McCabe (2-1), L O’Neill (0-1), R O’Connor. Subs: S McConville (1-1) for R O’Connor (44), F Burns for Dillon (49), O Keenan for R O’Neill (53), P Short for C Donnelly (57).
St Eunan’s: M Gallagher; C Moore, D McWalters, S Halvey; B McIntyre (1-0), D Toal, K Kealey; O Toal, K Grant; O Boyle (0-1 free), N O’Donnell (0-3, 0-2 frees), C Maloney; O McGinley, D McCrory, J Whelan. Subs: E McCrory (0-2) for Whelan (46), P McAleer for Maloney (57), G Maguire for Moore (59).
Referee: M McErlane (Ballinderry)
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