Life’s a breeze as Davitts secure return to senior
The victorious Davitts team celebrate their victory over Ballinrobe at Hastings Insurance MacHale Park last Sunday that saw them crowned county intermediate football champions for the first time since 2011. Pictures: Conor McKeown
Low air pressure brought Storm Boelo to Irish shores over the weekend, while the pressure of county final day also weighed heavily around Ballinrobe, Ballindine and Irishtown in the weeks leading up to the Sweeney Cup final day in MacHale Park.
Davitts proved impermeable to all of that on Sunday, defying tradition and logic as they produced their best performance of the year when their need was greatest. 24 shots on goal yielded 18 scores and just four wides, with five of those scores from outside the arc – six if you include Jack Melvin’s ’45 midway through the first-half.
Bob Dylan may have sang about shelter from the storm “when blackness was a virtue, and the road was full of mud”; but when black was on the jersey, dressed with a stripe of blood, the strong gusts that left the flags Blowin’ in the Wind proved no barrier to these fluid, natural attackers making sweet music in front of the posts.
First among equals were Melvin and Niall Treacy, who between them accounted for 0-17. Ciarán Treacy weighed in with a useful brace, Shane Treacy also played his part in a huge day for family and club with an invaluable hour’s work in linking the play and facilitating the rest of the attack, while defensively, Charlie Phillips and Tom Ronayne were resolute and firm, leading by example for a back division that occasionally strayed across the line of acceptable robustness in the tackle, but will easily be forgiven on the basis of their concession of a mere 0-5 from play over the course of the hour.
Phillips’ diving block to deny Cian O’Connell a potential goal from a narrow angle after 45 minutes exemplified their ‘non shall pass’ approach, and while Luke Jennings, Cian May and Ewan Duffy in particular will find it easier to make peace with this defeat in time, given that they could have done little more for the Ballinrobe cause, good news stories for the Robeside town were harder to find further up the pitch.
It was Ciarán Treacy who opened the scoring with a neat right-footed finish, and the exuberant fist pump as he turned and sprinted back towards his position – the kind of gesture usually reserved for a crucial score in the last ten minutes, rather than an opener after two – hinted at a group that arrived in Castlebar tuned into the right frequency.
There were a couple of stray shots from the Davitts men in the early stages, forced by good Ballinrobe pressure, but even in the first-half, there were signs that the game was being played at a tempo that just proved a little bit too much for the town club.
Ewan Duffy stroked over a two point free while Ryan Corcoran fisted one over the bar to make it 0-4 to 0-2 – some would say it was exactly the type of score that Kevin McStay’s Expert Advisory Group wants to outlaw because there possibly was a goal on the table – but what was to follow was a dominant 25 minute spell in which Davitts outscored their South Mayo opponents by 0-13 to 0-2, and were full value for every bit of it.
Already Jennings had come to Ballinrobe’s rescue with a fine save to deny Shane Treacy a goal, but the all-Treacy inside forward line was already showing their sharpness and cohesion with some nice interplay, and it was a stunning two-point kick from Niall, struck across the diagonal breeze, that kicked off that superb rub of form from Davitts.
Cathal Corless got his name on the scoresheet with a score that came from an Aaron McDonnell block that just landed perfectly for Melvin to instigate a second phase attack. Jack Ronayne came up with a perfect interception at one end of the field that led to a Niall Treacy point, assisted by Cian Naughton. And a Melvin free that was awarded for intense tackling leading to a Ballinrobe handling on the ground offence was exactly the type of score that galvanises forward lines.
Yet while it was a collective endeavour, Treacy and Melvin were in the form of their lives, elevating an industrious display into something more special. Melvin led the way from tricky dead ball shots while Treacy delivered a real captain’s score before half-time to help establish a 0-12 to 0-6 interval lead.
Ballinrobe were unlucky with a couple of efforts, particularly an Evan O’Brien shot that crashed off the post into the waiting arms of Brian Birmingham, though O’Brien also had a fortunate reprieve when it looked as if he was going to pick up a second yellow card for a high tackle, only for Shane Corcoran to instead identify Cian May as the culprit at the last moment.
Even at 15 on 15, Davitts were clearly superior, and in the second-half, they showed their superiority in a different way, absorbing the increased intensity and desperation of a Ballinrobe side that could sense this occasion was slipping away from them, yet still scoring a decent rate, even as they went through a more fallow period in the middle of the field.
Niall Treacy, Ciarán Treacy and Fenton Kelly carried their momentum into the second-half with the first three points after half-time, but there was a strong Ballinrobe push to come, even if it was goalkeeper Luke Jennings who was the unlikely figure to take on the mantle of their leading scoring threat.
Jennings landed some excellent kicks from distance while Aaron Crowley justified his introduction with a score to bring the gap back to a more manageable five points with 20 minutes still remaining, but they immediately kneecapped themselves by conceding a free at midfield, protesting the decision to have it brought forward, thus allowing Melvin to continue his incredible strike rate with a double.
The pattern repeated. Ballinrobe reduced the gap to four (0-17 to 0-13), only for Niall Treacy to have a shot that was allowed to bounce over the bar for another two-pointer, and that was immediately followed by the score that drew the largest roar of the game, coming as it did from substitute Colm Boyle.
Cian O’Connell hit back with two, albeit his shot from 20 metres out on the run needed to be aimed under the crossbar rather than over, but again, Melvin hit back with a free and it fell to Shane Treacy to add the final Davitts score of the afternoon. On another day, Treacy’s decision to take his own score rather than play in Liam Kearns for what would have been a glorious goal chance might be seen as a poor decision, but on a less-than-ideal day for football, Davitts made tricky things look simple all day long, so maybe there was just no reason to change tack in the final minutes.
And onwards they move into Connacht, still rolling. Like a Rolling Stone, even.
