Hogan Cup semi-final:
St Patrick’s, Maghera 2-14 Summerhill College, Sligo 3-10
WITHOUT their inspirational captain Conor Glass, everybody in a Maghera jersey had to lift their game in Wednesday’s Hogan Cup semi-final and that was certainly the case as they secured a one-point victory in the most dramatic of fashions.
Full-forward Shane McGuigan was superb throughout finishing with 1-8 to his name, 1-5 from play, and scoring the injury-time winning free having also been fouled for the penalty that got them back on level terms. The Slaughtneil clubman is a player in form having scored 1-6 in the MacRory semi-final and followed that up with 2-4 in the decider and he was delighted at the final whistle.
“We made hard work of it, but I suppose those are the sort of games that you cherish more whenever you come out on the right side of the result,” said McGuigan.
“To win by a point, with the last kick of the game, it doesn’t get any better than that. We had a very tight game in the MacRory Cup semi-final against Dungannon and I think the experience of that stood to us there today.
“We kicked a lot of wides and we knew that we would have to play to the final whistle to beat Summerhill but we kept going and thankfully we got the right result. You see that all the time when a side goes down to 14 men, they work all the harder, and fair play to Summerhill, they gave it their all there. They deserved to get back into the game.”
It’s fine margins that separate sides in titanic struggles like this one and that was certainly the case with Francis Kearney’s equalising penalty going in via the post and McGuigan’s injury-time winning free also clipping the woodwork on its way over.
“In an All-Ireland semi-final it is going to come down to things like that, fine margins," added McGuigan.
“Mr Hughes always talks about it being a game of inches and that was certainly the case there today.”
