CULLYHANNA manager Mick O’Dowd says the grace and dignity with which Crossmaglen accepted a sickening defeat last Sunday night has left him with “the utmost respect” for the perennial Armagh champions.
Cross, Orchard county kingpins in 19 out of the previous 20 seasons, looked set for the final, but Cullyhanna scored an injury-time goal to win by a single point. Despite their disappointment, the Rangers management visited the Cullyhanna dressing-room afterwards to congratulate their south Armagh neighbours.
“They came in and said ‘we were beat fair and square on the night’ and had no qualms about it,” said O’Dowd.
“They offered all the assistance they could to us and they were very, very respectful and spoke great words to the players.”
He added: “I’ve no doubt they’ll be back - we’ve probably just poked the bear! We’ve stirred up the hornets’ nest. They won the minors on Sunday and they have plenty of stuff coming through.”
Cullyhanna had run Crossmaglen close in the league over recent seasons, but O’Dowd admits his side “rode our luck a wee bit” in last Sunday night’s dramatic semi-final: “If you were in their shoes, you’d probably look to the sending-off, which I thought was pretty harsh,” he said.
“They went down to 14 men, but they still were pushing and pushing at us and it took a good save from James Carragher to keep us in the game. Then, we got the goal and I suppose, if you’re going to beat Crossmaglen, it has to be with the last kick of the game so they don’t have a chance to come back.”
There is still some confusion over who got the final touch to Cullyhanna’s winner - the goal was credited to Mal Mackin, but Gary McCooey may have got the final touch. But it was a set-piece routine that had been practiced on the training ground.
“I have to applaud Lorcan Martin because that’s a ‘45’ we’ve actually worked on,” said O’Dowd, who won a senior championship double in Monaghan with his native Clontibret and another in Cavan with Cavan Gaels.
“Aidan Nugent put in a great ball - it hadn’t come off for us all year, but that was the day for it to work.”
Success has been built from underage level up at the St Patrick’s outfit and the club have been consistently successful at U21 level in Armagh over recent seasons: “There’s a right few changes in the team over the last number of years and a lot of our young fellas don’t have any hang-ups about playing Crossmaglen,” O’Dowd added.
“We got a wee bit of luck at the end, but we hung in there and guys coming in off the bench who gave us a bit more drive in the last 15 minutes. They played with no fear and that’s what you have to do, I suppose.”
Cullyhanna reached their only senior decider three seasons ago and their final with Maghery guarantees a new name on the Gerry Fegan Cup since neither club has won Armagh’s most prestigious trophy before: “Maghery were the form team in the championship - they beat us and Cross at the end of the league and they were racking up massive scores,” said O’Dowd.
“We’ll have to do some work on our side to try and stop that, while gaining our own scores. They’ve a very good midfield and, when we played them in the league, they got a lot of men back and bottled it up and we found them very hard to break down.”
