Fairytale run continues for unfancied Ballagh’

Mayo SFC Quarter-Final 

Ballaghaderreen 2-8 

Ballintubber 0-8 

Anthony Hennigan in Ballaghaderreen 

You could pick holes in the Ballaghaderreen display for sure, like how defenders and midfielders scored more than attackers, like how no forward scored after the 22nd minute or like how the team’s final score came as early as the 36th minute, but all that serves only to show how abject the performance of their opponents, Ballintubber, in the weekend’s first of four senior football championship quarter-finals.

Locals estimated the attendance to be the largest Ballaghaderreen had ever witnessed for a game of club football – and it was the home support who were given all the reasons to cheer, as Tomás Morley’s side led from the 48th second right up until the full-time shrill of Kevin Connelly’s whistle.

Slight underdogs from once the last eight draw had been made, those odds on a Ballaghaderreen victory would have lengthened when an eleventh hour appeal to overturn a suspension against Cian Hanley failed. The former Mayo and AFL player, dismissed in his side’s group draw with Claremorris, was a nervous bystander, but his teammates on the pitch were coolness personified, none more so than David Drake whose man-marking job on his former county teammate Cillian O’Connor resulted in the country’s all-time top scoring inter-county footballer registering a single point from play.

From being many people’s outsiders to qualify from the group stages, Ballagh’ are deserved semi-finalists. The back of their jersey is carrying the name of their beloved club and county legend Johnno and you’re beginning to wonder if their name could also be on the cup, in the year of his untimely passing; they’ll remain the least fancied of the four remaining teams but won’t fret one bit about that.

Ballintubber were decidedly off colour, particularly for a side containing so many players with varying levels of inter-county experience. Where Ballaghaderreen tallied two wides for the entire match, one in each half, Ballintubber failed with seven scoring attempts in the first-half alone, as three shots drifted wide and four more dropped into the arms of Ballagh’ goalkeeper Jamie Lunt. And yet, they may still wonder ‘what if?’ What if Cillian O’Connor had delivered greater power and accuracy to a goal effort just before half-time that flew straight at Lunt?

What if Ciaran Gavin, picked out by Bryan Walsh’s quick free, had not blasted wide from point blank range two minutes into the second-half?

And what if Lunt had not leapt like a cat to parry a top corner shot by Cillian O’Connor who surely thought he was about to halve Ballintubber’s arrears to three points with another five minutes still left to play?

Yet it can hardly be said that ‘Tubber exhibited much sparkling football at any stage of this championship whereas for Ballagh’ to record home wins against the five-time Moclair Cup winners and against Knockmore, and on the road in Belmullet, is something very few would have predicted at the beginning of the year. Remember, in Division 2B of the Mayo SFL, Ballaghaderreen finished behind Crossmolina, Hollymount-Carramore and Louisburgh, none of whom they were able to beat, while they also lost by seven points to The Neale, the third of those four teams who have already exited the intermediate championship.

If the aforementioned David Drake, not for the first time this season, was a Man-of-the-Match contender, he had a firm rival in his equally experienced Ballagh’ colleague Ryan Lynch, whose three consecutive points from midfield either side of half-time were things of beauty. They were also the East Mayo outfit’s last scores of the game. Consider too that corner-back, centre-back and the entire full-forward line all scored from play, and it’s clear to see this was a complete team effort from front to back.

Morley’s men had made a dream start to Saturday’s clash, scoring 1-2 without reply inside six minutes. Kuba Callaghan, from a self-won free, and Matthew Connor pointed from Ballagh’s first two attacks before Callaghan pounced upon a poor kick-pass to Ballintubber goalkeeper Frank Walsh and slotted home the opening goal.

Ciaran Gavin, David McHale and Cillian O’Connor had each missed point scoring attempts before O’Connor finally opened his side’s account in the 10th minute, with what turned out his only score from play. That point was added to by one apiece from Michael Plunkett and Jason Gibbons, narrowing Ballintubber’s arrears to two points, but an 18th minute second goal for Ballagh’ was the catalyst for a match-winning spurt by the home side.

A long ball into Kuba Callaghan broke kindly for Darragh Kelly who managed to pop the ball across to an advanced David McBrien who fired beyond Walsh. Coming either side of Cillian O’Connor dropping a pair of frees short into the ‘keeper, by the time O’Connor had scored Ballintubber’s only other first-half point, in the 30th minute, Ballaghaderreen had already buttressed their second goal with four more points, by Callum Coleman, Callaghan, Domhnall Forrest and Ryan Lynch, at the end of a 60-metre solo past several would-be Ballintubber tacklers – and again, just after O’Connor was short at the other end.

Ballagh’ led by eight points at half-time, 2-6 to 0-4, and would have survived if scoring nothing at all in the second-half. As it turned out, their scoring was done and dusted inside six minutes of the restart, when Lynch replied to an early Conor Finnerty point by landing two more boomers from downtown, off right and left boots, stretching the margin to nine points.

Ballagh’ were fortunate Ciaran Gavin had dragged a goal effort badly wide of the right post when it seemed easier to score but four minutes later, it took a diving block from Brian Murphy to deny the lively Sharoize Akram from adding a third Ballagh’ goal, so even though they were content to sit deep for the rest of the match, the hosts were always representing a threat on the counterattack.

Pointed frees by Cillian O’Connor, in the 40th, 43rd and 56th minutes, were all Ballintubber could muster in a scoring sense thereafter, as a championship campaign that saw them win one of four games petered out disappointingly for Tom Mulderrig’s side.

Scorers – Ballaghaderreen: Kuba Callaghan 1-2 (0-2f), David McBrien 1-0, Ryan Lynch 0-3, Matthew Connor, Callum Coleman and Domhnall Forrest 0-1 each.

Ballintubber: Cillian O’Connor 0-5 (4f), Michael Plunkett, Jason Gibbons and Conor Finnerty 0-1 each.

Ballaghaderreen: Jamie Lunt; Seamus Cunniffe, David Drake, Domhnall Forrest; Luke Connor, David McBrien, Adam Phillips; Ryan Lynch, Darragh Kelly; Shairoze Akram, Keith O’Donnell, Kane Phillips; Kuba Callaghan, Matthew Connor, Callum Coleman. Subs: Cormac Doohan (for Forrest 37), Aaron Lynch (for Phillips 44), Dylan Feeney (for L Connor 53), Arainn McDermott (for Coleman 59), Luke O’Grady (for A Phillips 60+1).

Ballintubber: Frank Walsh; Michael Plunkett, Gary Loftus, Joe Geraghty; Conor Finnerty, Brian Murphy, Noel Geraghty; Jason Gibbons, David McHale; Ciaran Gavin, Diarmuid O’Connor, Bryan Walsh; Stephen Burke, Cillian O’Connor, Stephen O’Malley. Subs: Jack Walsh (for Loftus ht), James Finnerty (for O’Malley 40), John Kerrigan and Jack Prendergast (for Geraghty and McHale 43).

REF: Kevin Connelly (Hollymount-Carramore)