Tir na nÓg, Moy 0-9 St Bronagh's, Rostrever 0-8
MOY joy overflowed at the Athletic Grounds as they were crowned Ulster Club IFC champions, the celebrations tempered by relief after they just got over the line against 13-man Rostrevor.
It looked as if it was all falling apart when the Down men had two defenders sent off in the closing 10 minutes, but they fought back strongly to reduce the deficit to a single point, and could easily have profited from some highrisk possession football played by the Tyrone champions, who appeared content to play the ball back towards their own goal in the closing stages.
They got away with it, and deservedly so, for they were the better side over the 60-odd minutes of a tense decider which threatened to boil over at times. Joint-manager Audi Kelly spent an anxious last few minutes on the sideline as his players gambled on their own ability to avoid turnovers, frequently playing the ball back to goalkeeper Nathan Brady.
“Nathan seemed to be on the ball a lot, but fair dues to them, when the pressure was coming on, they kept the ball really well, and we got over the line, which is the main thing,” he said. And Moy had to recover from an early Rostrevor siege as the Down men went three ahead. “We knew that was going to happen. It’s a final. They had done a lot of work on us, we had done a lot of work on them. “That early part of the game, we looked a wee bit nervous. It took us a while to get settled into the game, but we had a 10-minute spell at the end of the first half that brought us right back into the game and gave us the platform to go on and do the business in that second half.” And when the pressure came on again in the second half, Niall Conlon was a colossus at the back, helping the Tír na nÓgs survive some difficult moments. “Niall, Tommy McNicholl, Paddy Mackle, the boys in the full back line were superb, because they had two absolutely brilliant players that were inside, and they kept them really quiet, so all credit to them,” said Kelly. The effectiveness of Rostrevor’s match-ups were evident from the outset, and while Harry Loughran kicked Moy’s opening point, he was well held by Jonathan Connolly, one of his side’s most consistent performers throughout the season. Intensity in the tackle was the foundation of the Down champions’ challenge, with Niall Farrell and Darren McElhinney responsible for a number of important turnovers which launched pacey counter-attacks, which Piaras Kane, Caolan Mooney and Conor Magee turned into scores. Sean Cavanagh kept the Tyrone men in touch with a converted free, but they went three behind after goalkeeper Jonathan Parr drilled two 45-metre frees between the posts. Damian Magee got back to execute a goal-saving challenge on Loughran, after he had been sent clear by Thomas Conlon, and as Rostrevor broke yet again, Niall Conlon denied Kane with a crucial tackle. Moy had gone 17 minutes without a score, before Cavanagh knocked over a couple of frees, and they went level in stoppage time through skipper Eunan Deeney, Rostrevor’s scores having dried up for the previous 16 minutes. They were deadlocked at 0-5 each at the break, and tension filled the air as opposing players clashed at the end of the opening half and again prior to the restart. But with the wind at their backs, Moy began to run at the Rostrevor defence, Loughran using his pace to add to Cavanagh’s early free as they went three ahead, with a run of six points either side of the interval. Rostrevor had gone more than half an hour without scoring until Mooney landed a free at the end of the third quarter, but their challenge suffered a major double blow when midfielder Conor Magee and defender James Rice, who had already been booked, were both shown second yellow cards and they were down to 13 men. But Mooney did all he could to lift his troops, sending over the score of the game, and added a difficult free to trim the deficit to a single point. Moy backed themselves to hold possession in the closing stages, mostly in dangerous territory, but they survived to claim the prize and a ticket to the All-Ireland series. “We had talked about no regrets, but I think we’re going to have one or two, and that’s the worst thing,” said Rostrevor manager Shane Mulholland “We’ll rue the last 17 minutes of the first half, for we were 5-2 up, and we missed two chances to make it 7-2. We knew against the Moy we would need to take all our chances today. “We lost or discipline with two fairly rash tackles, and we had been talking about keeping our discipline in the lead-up to this game.” “With 13 men, at that point we just had to dispense with the sweeper and push up. We were going to lose the game nobly or we could win the game.”
