Cool hand Luke stars in the Late Late Show as Ballagh' bag league title
Ballaghaderreen’s David McBrien and Aghamore’s Liam Lavin have their eyes firmly fixed on the ball in last Saturday's AbbVie Mayo SFL Division 2 final. Picture: David Farrell Photography
Many, too many, a game under the old rules was won on half what Aghamore scored on Saturday but even in these changed and exciting times for Gaelic football, some old adages still apply. Like how class is permanent.
Ballaghaderreen went from behind to in front in the space of three minutes late in the second-half thanks to back-to-back points by Andy Moran who came off the bench and out of retirement to help his club win the Mayo SFL Division 2 title.
Whether he is the man on the minds of Mayo GAA chiefs searching for their next senior football manager remains unclear, but he’ll certainly have occupied the headspace of Aghamore’s footballers during Saturday night’s post mortem. They had just scored three points in-a-row to take the lead with four minutes of regulation time left to play when the former Footballer of the Year intervened with a pair of points off either boot, from opposite sides of the pitch.
His former Mayo teammate Fergal Boland did manage to haul Aghamore level in the third minute of stoppage time from a free, however, while extra-time might now have been in the thoughts of some players on the pitch, Luke O’Grady wasn’t one of them. The Ballaghaderreen captain arrived from defence to receive a pass from David McBrien and shooting from the right wing into the Bacon Factory end, the wing-back kicked a brilliant winner in the very last play of the game. Minutes later, O’Grady was climbing the steps to accept the Davitt Trophy, his side having won even in the absence of quality such as is usually offered by Shairoze Akram, David Drake, Cian Hanley and Seamus Cunniffe.
“They really pushed us. We were lucky with that score at the end just to win it,” Luke O’Grady told the afterwards.
“It was a right good game. The first five minutes of the second-half they were right back in it, they kicked a few big scores and they really put us under pressure,” he added.
Ballaghaderreen had led 2-7 to 0-9 at half-time thanks largely to a contribution of 2-4 from Kuba Callaghan, but Aghamore roared out of the blocks to swiftly kick the first four points of the second-half and level proceedings. But on all four occasions that Paddy Finnegan’s team kicked equalising points in that second-half, Ballagh’ displayed the sort of class that saw them come within an inch of ousting eventual back-to-back champions Ballina Stephenites from last year’s Mayo SFC.
“You have to start right from scratch again and we’ll be looking forward to the championship starting in three weeks and hopefully pushing on and win it this year,” said a bullish Luke O’Grady.
“We’re confident. We’ve a lot of work to do, we’ve a few boys to get back as well, which is good, but we’ve a lot of fellas training this year compared to this time last year. We had only nine or ten at training whereas now we’ve 20 or 25 lads every day.
“I suppose we did well last year and there’s that bit of hunger to try and win it,” admitted the captain, whose team reached the semi-finals in hunting for the Moclair Cup last year.
They and Aghamore had both reached this Division 2 final on the back of unbeaten runs in Divisions 2A and 2B, with Ballagh’ finishing atop the latter with a scoring difference of 137 points, which was practically double that of second placed Kilmeena. Yet Aghamore had four different scorers from play inside the opening twelve minutes, Fergal Boland, Jack O’Connor, James Lyons and Liam Lavin, while Ballagh’ were totally reliant on Kuba Callaghan for their opening goal and two points, which left them one point ahead after thirteen minutes.
Callaghan’s major was borne out of sheer defiance by the centre-forward who simply refused to yield to five or six would-be Aghamore tacklers before unleashing a left-foot rocket beyond goalkeeper Adam Byrne.
Byrne’s opposite, Jamie Lunt, stopped Oisin Greally from scoring an almost instant reply, and Lunt covered his angles again in the 21st minute, this time to save from Liam Lavin, at which stage the teams were level at 1-4 to 0-7, with Byrne, from a ’45, Boland, a free, and Sean Og Tighe pointing for Aghamore, and Rossa McDermott belting over a two pointer to become Ballaghaderreen’s second scorer of the day.
Patrick Sharkey’s men would then hit a purple patch that saw Adam Phillips and Kuba Callaghan kick a point apiece before the latter, looking razor sharp, rattled home his second goal, mere seconds after his attacking colleague Callum Coleman had drawn a decent save from Adam Byrne.
Boland replied with two pointed frees but Callaghan hit back with one in kind, to leave the border boys four ahead at the turnaround.
Aghamore meant business upon the resumption and in jig time they had drawn level, thanks to a brace of points by Liam Lavin and one each by Darren Duffy and James Lyons, who had shown lightning quick speed to break through the Ballaghaderreen cover. And even when Callaghan, from a free, and Rossa McDermott, with Callaghan providing the assist, kicked a point apiece, those were swiftly negated by Duffy, again off the fist, and former Mayo defender Brendan Harrison, whose goal effort was deflected over the crossbar by Lunt.
Harrison had played with wonderful composure throughout and perhaps it was with the approaching championship in mind that the veteran was substituted as early as the 44th minute, but Aghamore seemed to lose something in his parting. Ryan Lynch and Matthew Connor kicked Ballagh’ back into a two points lead and Kuba Callaghan, from a free, negated Fergal Boland’s fifth point, and second from play, to leave the scoreboard reading 2-12 to 0-16 with the game now into its final ten minutes.
Another goal chance came and went for Aghamore, this time the quality of Darren Duffy’s delivery rivalled only by the turn of Liam Lavin that left corner-back Aaron Lynch for dust, but Lavin was frustrated to blaze his shot high and wide. However, he, Duffy and lively substitute Conor Hunt did rifle over the points that sent the Red and White one ahead after 56 minutes. It was the first time in almost 40 minutes they had been in front.
Recognising the seriousness of the situation, Andy Moran, introduced almost a quarter hour earlier but with little involvement thus far, rewarded the spadework of David McBrien and Naoise Kelly with a neat point off his left boot and on the hour mark, restored Ballagh’s lead when gaining a yard in the top left corner and whipping over off his right.
A breach of the three-up rule, which led to Boland tying the game from a free, could have been costly for Ballaghaderreen had the restart not seen McBrien burst forward and get lucky with a bounce before setting up Luke O’Grady to snatch the Division 2 title with the very last kick.
Scorers – Ballaghaderreen: Kuba Callaghan 2-0-6 (5f), Ross McDermott 0-1-1, Andy Moran 0-0-2, Adam Phillips, Matthew Connor, Ryan Lynch and Luke O’Grady 0-0-1 each.
Aghamore: Fergal Boland 0-0-6 (4f), Liam Lavin 0-0-4, Darren Duffy 0-0-3, James Lyons 0-0-2, Adam Byrne (’45), Jack O’Connor, Sean Og Tighe, Brendan Harrison and Conor Hunt 0-0-1 each.
Ballaghaderreen: Jamie Lunt; Kane Phillips, David McBrien, Aaron Lynch; Luke O’Grady, Adam Phillips, Matthew Connor; Ryan Lynch, Darragh Kelly; Rossa McDermott, Kuba Callaghan, Keith O’Donnell; Cormac Doohan, Callum Coleman, John Higgins. Subs: Conor Moriarty (for O’Donnell 38), Andy Moran (for Doohan 44), Naoise Kelly (for McDermott 50, inj).
Aghamore: Adam Byrne; Justin Kelly, Conal Hession, Conal Breslin; Brendan Harrison, Robert Lyons, Oisin Greally; Sean Og Tighe, Michael McNieve; Conor Kilkenny, Fergal Boland, Darren Duffy; Jack O’Connor, Liam Lavin, James Lyons. Subs: Conor Hunt (for Harrison 44), Hallum Coen (for McNieve 47), Oisin Duffy (for O’Connor 49), David Hession (for Kilkenny 59).
REF: Shane Corcoran (Islandeady)
