Football

Magherafelt dethrone Eoghan Rua to claim overdue statement win

Magherafelt players celebrate at the final whistle on Saturday evening. Picture by Margaret McLaughlin
Magherafelt players celebrate at the final whistle on Saturday evening. Picture by Margaret McLaughlin Magherafelt players celebrate at the final whistle on Saturday evening. Picture by Margaret McLaughlin

O’Neills Derry SFC round one: O’Donovan Rossa, Magherafelt 1-8 Eoghan Rua, Coleraine 0-10

SOME would say the last one was the semi-final win over Ballinderry in 1983. Others would take you back to the final against Banagher in ’78, the last time they won a county title. Whichever you choose, this was a statement win for Magherafelt that’s been a long, long time coming.

And it was a long time worked for. Their deep-lying, counter-attacking style might not compel the eyes, but it was the absolute tonic for a game against the now-deposed champions of Derry.

Eoghan Rua are renowned for something similar themselves, and there was always the suspicion that it could still be a live contest in the last fifteen minutes.

So it proved. The Coleraine men had provided what few bright sparks were in the game until that point, most notably through Niall Holly, who looked as sharp and lean and athletic as he perhaps ever has. When he took off down the middle, Magherafelt couldn’t touch him.

Holly ended up with 0-3 and there were a few similar surges from Liam McGoldrick, but beyond that, it was a largely introverted display from Sean McGoldrick’s side.

Magherafelt were arguably even more methodical. And in the end, it fell to a man playing Irish League soccer for Coleraine to knock the town’s GAA team off its perch.

Emmett McGuckin has always been a goal-hanger, and if you asked 100 Rossas to name his forte, they’d mostly tell you it’s hanging on the far post waiting to flick a hanging ball home.

He will take the glory, and the finish was brave, but the donkey work was Jared Monaghan’s. With line breaks drying up, the Magherafelt midfielder-cum-sweeper joined an attack at midfield out on the left wing.

Monaghan came at the ball at pace, popped it off and continued at the same sprint to go right past the Coleraine cover. He was fed the return and then hung it up to the far post, where McGuckin climbed highest to squeeze the ball home.

Even though there were still 13 minutes of normal time (plus just one added minute, strangely) still to play, and though Eoghan Rua were twice to equalise in that time, the goal was the trump card.

Ciaran McGoldrick made it 1-6 to 0-9 but Magherafelt went straight up and John Young popped up on the overlap to rectify two earlier misses by sliding over another lead score.

Sean Leo McGoldrick, influential at times but also fairly well restrained by Simon McErlain, stepped up and took a fork to the Magherafelt cover, poking three little holes that opened enough space for Barry Daly to level it again.

The champions were in disarray though, uncharacteristically bare at the back. They went after the game but when sub Declan Martin won the kickout, the ball over the top for Cormac Murphy opened it right up again.

The young forward bore down and when Ryan McGeough spread himself superbly to stop the shot with his midriff, it seemed Magherafelt had missed a big chance, but the ball spun back in Murphy’s direction and he had the composure to fist it with just enough legs to clear the bar.

Eoghan Rua would get one last chance with a 48-metre free but having rescued his side several times last year, Liam McGoldrick couldn’t match the distance with accuracy and pulled his shot wide to the sound of the final whistle.

Adrian Cush and his assistant Paul Quinn had been up home in Tyrone to watch their native Donaghmore caught by a late Killyclogher sucker-punch earlier in the day, from which they took a late lesson.

“We didn’t play well, but in one minute, Emmett’s goal just turned the whole thing. That’s championship football, it can turn like that," said Quinn.

“Look at what it means to this club. They haven’t had a day like that for a long time, somebody said to me it was 1983. But at the same time, it’s the first round. We’ll enjoy tonight and then go again.”

They had looked like a side treading water in the weeks after the 10-week break in the league but after successive heavy defeats by Bellaghy and Glen, they secured a priceless win over Ballinderry that changed the whole mood.

“The week of the Ballinderry game was massive for everybody, for management and players. We turned it around. Ballinderry might say they were below par but for a team that had no confidence to beat Ballinderry that day in a game with a championship atmosphere, it was a two-point game, that was a big one.

“We spoke about that one a lot this week. We came through today by the skin of our teeth, very small margin. There have been plenty of narrow defeats before, it’s nice to get a narrow victory.”

As for Eoghan Rua, while Sean McGoldrick said Magherafelt “deserved their win” and that his side were “masters of our own downfall”, they did have issue with a Shea McLaughlin shot that was given wide by the umpires early in the second half

“The two umpires didn’t seem to know what to do and gave a wide, so we might have been hard done by, but Magherafelt deserved their victory.

“He’s definite that it was over the bar, but I can’t say. The people on the far side and the linesman on that side might have been able to tell, but he didn’t seem to interfere.”

That’s the life Eoghan Rua live though. Their style leaves them hanging on this precipice, and Magherafelt wobbled for 47 minutes and then straightened up to push the champions off the cliff.

It’s an awful long way yet to a county title, and Slaughtneil will head the list of favourites by a wider margin than they did on Saturday morning.

Magherafelt will fancy themselves but even if the value of this win isn’t felt for a year or two or even five, they might one day look back on this as the breakthrough night.

MATCH STATS


Magherafelt: O Lynch; C McCluskey, D O’Neill, G Lupari; F Duffin, S McErlain, C Kearns; J Monaghan, E McGuckin (1-0), D Heavron; P McLarnon, S Heavron (0-4 frees), J Young (0-1); A McElhone (0-1), C Murphy (0-2)


Subs: D Martin for P McLarnon (47), P O’Kane for Lupari (55)


Black card: D O’Neill (30) replaced by J Keenan

Eoghan Rua: R McGeough; C Lagan, L McGoldrick, B Daly; D Mullan, B McGoldrick, C Mullan; N Holly (0-3), S McLaughlin; R Mooney, SL McGoldrick, G McWilliams (0-1); Mark McTaggart; Colm McGoldrick (0-3, 0-1 free), Ciaran McGoldrick (0-1)


Subs: A McGonigle for McTaggart (HT), C Lenehan for C Mullan (55), T Carey for McWilliams (55)

Referee: JJ Cleary (Castledawson)

Attendance: 2,831