Football

Crossmaglen extend perfect Ulster final record in stone cold classic

Kenny Archer

Kenny Archer

Kenny is the deputy sports editor and a Liverpool FC fan.

Kyle Carragher's goal was the defining moment in Crossmaglen's 2-17 to 2-12 Ulster final win against Scotstown
Kyle Carragher's goal was the defining moment in Crossmaglen's 2-17 to 2-12 Ulster final win against Scotstown Kyle Carragher's goal was the defining moment in Crossmaglen's 2-17 to 2-12 Ulster final win against Scotstown

AIB Ulster Ciub Senior Football Championship final: Crossmaglen Rangers (Armagh) 2-17 Scotstown (Monaghan) 2-12 (after extra-time)

AN absolute chiller but also an absolute thriller. These two teams defied the dreadful weather to serve up a fabulous feast of football. 

In the end Crossmaglen turned up the heat and turned it up to 11, extending their perfect record in provincial finals. 

On the sort of evening that you wouldn’t send your worst enemy’s dog out in, both sides produced pedigree performances. 

Tony Kernan was the leader of the pack, his tally of 1-6 ensuring Cross are top dogs again, ending their three-year ‘drought’, although it took 25 of their players to win back the Seamus McFerran Cup. 

The former high kings of Ulster, Scotstown, will be miserable, of course, but they can take great pride in their battling display, one worthy of the previous generation which won four provincial titles between 1978 and 1989. 

The Monaghan men looked in trouble at half-time, trailing by three points – 1-6 to 1-3 – having had the wild wind mostly at their backs. 

Yet they drove hard at Cross’ and might even have snatched victory in normal time, only for a long distance free from goalkeeper Rory Beggan to fall short, hit as it was into that fierce breeze blowing straight down the pitch.

Indeed it wasn’t until the 74th minute, in the second period of extra-time, that the Rangers finally got a clinching grip on this game, when sub Jamie Clarke set up Kyle Carragher to palm in their second goal. 

Even after that a matching score from Scotstown sub Brian McGinnity meant that there was just a goal separating the sides going into the 79th minute. 

This was a terrific game of football at any time but especially so in the awful weather conditions, with wind and rain swirling around for much of the match. 

Understandably the exchanges were sometimes fiery, on and off the pitch, resulting in four red cards, two apiece. 

The first sending-off was that of Cross’ sub Danny O’Callaghan, dismissed for an off-the-ball incident that left midfielder James Turley grounded in the 54th minute. 

However, Crossmaglen weathered that short spell with a man less, and were able to replace him, whereas Scotstown struggled more without Kieran Hughes, who was put off just five minutes into extra-time. 

His older brother Darren followed him in added time at the end, along with his marker James Morgan, for a second yellow card, the culmination of a running battle throughout this final. 

Darren had enjoyed the upper hand early on, capitalising when Morgan missed a bouncing ball in the ninth minute, coolly guiding a shot past veteran Cross’ captain and goalkeeper Paul Hearty into the net. 

Yet that was to be the last score from the Monaghan star, and although Scotstown extended their lead through Orin Heaphey, Cross’ bossed the remainder of the first half.

Pressing their opponents high up the pitch, the south Armagh side repeatedly forced Scotstown to kick away possession, the latter’s attacking efforts not helped by their team dropping deeper. 

Cross’ full-forward Johnny Murtagh pulled them closer with two fine scores and then good teamwork culminated in the energetic Michael McNamee setting up Tony Kernan to place a low left-footer to the net. A free from the latter left the Rangers 1-6 to 1-3 ahead at the break. 

That seemed to leave the favourites well set up for the second period – but the loss of midfielder Johnny Hanratty to a head injury, ironically sustained during injury time, weakened them in the central area, despite his replacement by the experienced David McKenna. 

Although Carragher stretched Cross’s lead, Scotstown roared back at them, reeling off five of the next six scores, levelling matters at 1-8 apiece thanks to a lovely score from Conor McCarthy as the game entered the final quarter of regulation time.

A minute earlier Cross’s other starting midfielder, Rico Kelly, had also gone off, and although former captain Stephen Kernan moved to midfield Scotstown continued to hold sway around there, helped by David McCague’s introduction to centrefield and by Darren Hughes dropping deeper. 

The Monaghan champions’ hopes were boosted further when O’Callaghan saw red, for throwing an arm into Turley’s face, but Cross’ showed their character in those closing stages. 

Morgan made a lung-bursting run up the left, drawing a soft-looking foul from Darren Hughes, and that man Tony Kernan converted the free. 

However, Carey won one at the other end and equalised again. The game was on a knife edge, with which implement you could have cut the tension.

When referee Barry Cassidy awarded Scotstown another free on the hour mark, Crossmaglen joint-manager Oisin McConville raced onto the pitch to protest, while the opposition’s physio tangled with McKenna while trying to treat the prostrate McCague. 

There could be no arguments, though, about the free given when Aaron Kernan dragged back Darren Hughes, but Beggan just could not overpower the win to write his name into the headlines and the history books. 

Having never been in front since the first Crossmaglen goal, Scotstown did edge ahead just over a minute into extra time, but again Beggan could not convert a free into the wind. 

Back to their full complement of 15, Cross’ levelled through a great point from Callum Cumiskey, then went one up in terms of personnel after an altercation between Kieran Hughes and Murtagh.

The Rangers, and Tony Kernan in particular, took advantage, two more frees from his right boot making it 1-13 to 1-11.

Scotstown refused to give in, McCarthy pointing a free, but the tide seemed to be turning in Crossmaglen’s favour.

Big David McKenna popped up with a score at full-forward – and in that same 74th minute came the clinching moment, Clarke hand-passing across goal for Kyle Carragher to gleefully find the net.

Padraig Stuttard then left six points between the teams, but Scotstown still made Cross’ sweat, Darren Hughes driving forward to set up McGinnity for a precise goal off the base of the post.

Fittingly Tony Kernan eased the pressure before his brother Aaron put the gloss on a famous victory from a free. 

Cross’ go on to meet Connacht champions Castlebar Mitchel’s, who dethroned this year’s All-Ireland winners Corofin, but whatever the outcome next February, it’s unlikely to be a tougher test than this. 

A stone cold classic.

Crossmaglen: P Hearty; P Hughes, A Rushe, P McKeown; A Kernan (0-1 free), M Aherne, J Morgan; J Hanratty, R Kelly; M McNamee (0-1), S Kernan (0-1), T Kernan (1-6, 0-5 frees); O O’Neill, J Murtagh (0-3), K Carragher (1-2).

Substitutes: D McKenna (0-1) for Hanratty (h-t); S Finnegan for Rushe (37); J Clarke for O’Neill (40); C Cumiskey (0-1) for Kelly (45); D O’Callaghan for Aherne (51); A Cunningham for McNamee (54);

Extra-time: P Stuttard (0-1) (introduced for extra time); G Carragher for Cunningham (start of extra time); K Brennan for Murtagh (h-t of e-t); D McConville for S Kernan (75); Cunningham for K Carragher (76). Yellow cards: S Kernan (14); Murtagh (34); T Kernan (53); Cunningham (60); Morgan (65 and 82); Cumiskey (69).

Red cards: O’Callaghan (55); Morgan (82, second yellow) 

Scotstown: R Beggan (0-1 ‘45’); D McArdle, E Caulfield (0-1); P Keenan; M Duffy, K Hughes, F McPhillips; F Caulfield, J Turley; O Heaphey (0-1), D Morgan (capt.) (0-1), C McCarthy (0-2, 0-1 free); S Carey (0-6, 0-5 frees), D Hughes (1-0), R McKenna.

Substitutes: B Boylan for McPhillips (31, first half); D McCague for McKenna (43); 


B McGinnity (1-0) for Heaphey (49);

Extra-time: D McCrudden for Duffy (h-t of e-t); 


S Mohan for Keenan (73); B McMeel for E Caulfield (76); D McNally for McArdle (79).

Yellow cards: F Caulfield (40).

Red cards: K Hughes (65); D Hughes (82).

Referee: Barry Cassidy (Derry).