Morgan Fuels Down SFC quarter-final: Kilcoo 0-9 Carryduff 0-5
JUST 14 points, three red cards, four if including a manager being sent off, and 12 yellows - sounds like one of those games where whatever football there was must have taken a back seat to brawling, doesn’t it?
Except that wasn’t really the case as Kilcoo escaped Carryduff’s shackles to move into Monday night’s semi-final draw, the city men in control with half-time looming, only to lose the first of three men as momentum slowly but surely switched.
Sure there was a strange sort of an edge to this one from the off, but it felt needly rather than nasty. Having come face to face in the first round three weeks earlier, and with a bit of history from recent league encounters too, perhaps there were personal scores to be settled out on the field.
There were flashpoints, particularly in the second half, but none really carried the threat of boiling over. Yet it became clear early on that referee Micheal Moore wasn’t in the mood to let much go, and so the game threatened to descend into farce as the card count continued to grow.
Cian Clinton, James Guinness and Eoin Donnelly all picked up two yellows as Carryduff finished with 12 men, while boss Finnian Moriarty also saw red midway through the second half, deemed to have entered the field of play after catching the ball near the sideline.
And yet Carryduff will still be wondering what might have been after closing the gap significantly from that initial championship outing.
They led 0-4 to 0-1 as a grind of a first half edged to a close, and it could have been more. John McGeough - who saw the red card picked up against Loughinisland the Monday previous overturned - didn’t quite have his eye in early on, while the accuracy Cian Clinton displayed in Newry wasn’t on show in Downpatrick as shots dropped short and wide.
Daniel Guinness also burst through for the game’s sole goal chance minutes before the break, Kilcoo ’keeper Niall Kane doing well to divert his Down team-mate’s low effort onto the post and out for a 45.
The Magpies were living dangerously, and offering little of note at the other end.
Yet the game was turned on its head in the space of a minute – Clinton was shown a second yellow for a trip on Eugene Branagan, and as he was walking towards the Carryduff dugout Darryl Branagan burst forward and curled over to cut the gap to two.
Kilcoo tails suddenly up, Carryduff head wondering what had just happened.
“I wasn’t worried necessarily,” said Kilcoo boss Karl Lacey, “but I was still glad to get them into the room, get them reset and focus again on what we needed to do. To go in only two points down was good considering the amount of possession Carryduff had in the first half.
“The second half was different in terms of what we brought to the table, it was definitely a different Kilcoo team went out in that second half, a bit more aggression in our play, a bit more compact in defence and we were patient in attack.”
Darryl Branagan grew in stature as the game wore on, passing and probing to good effect as scores from Ryan Johnston and Miceal Rooney brought them level. It looked like being a long second half for Moriarty’s men.
Yet as they withdrew all 14 men back, Kilcoo still found it hard to pick holes and penetrate. Ten minutes passed before Jerome Johnston sidestepped Conor Cassidy and curled over to put Kilcoo ahead for the first time since the sixth minute, 0-5 to 0-4.
Carryduff were scrapping for everything but it was hard to see where another point was going to come from at that stage, their cause suffering another body blow when James Guinness made the long walk after picking up his second yellow for a foul on Ryan Johnston.
Already without injured forward Ronan Beatty, their scoring threat was suddenly diminished further.
Eoin Donnelly came into his own during this phase, the former Fermanagh midfielder plucking two brilliant balls out of the air to set Carryduff on the front foot, one eventually ending with Josh Connery levelling it up at 0-5 apiece.
But that would be the end of Carryduff’s scoring as Kilcoo started to turn the screw, making the extra men count against wearying legs, Chrissy Rooney dropping into space before converting from a mark before the superb Darryl Branagan finished a forward burst with a flourish.
Losing Donnelly to a second yellow in added time severely dented any hope Carryduff had of landing the goal that might breathe new life into their championship challenge, with Jerome Johnston stepping up to perform the last rites with two late frees as the defending champions move on.
“It was strange alright,” added Lacey, “just a typical winner-takes-all clash.
“In fairness to Carryduff, they had a quick turnaround from Monday night and they threw everything at it – it’s something we need to address ourselves, me leading that out in relation to getting heads right and getting the mindset right.
“At the end of the day, Kilcoo are the team everybody’s looking to take down in Down, so it had that feel. Carryduff threw the kitchen sink at us.”
Kilcoo: N Kane; N Branagan, R McEvoy, C Rogers; M Rooney (0-1), D Branagan (0-2), C Doherty, J Devlin; Aaron Morgan, Ryan Johnston (0-1); S Johnston, Anthony Morgan, E Branagan; J Johnston (0-4, 0-3 frees), C Rooney (0-1, mark). Subs: N Rogers for Devlin (52), C Laverty for Rogers (54), S Og McCusker for E Branagan (56), M Hynes for N Branagan (60)
Yellow cards: R McEvoy (30+3), R Johnston (46), Aaron Morgan (60)
Carryduff: R Lavery; M McGrath, C Cassidy, O Sherry; P McCabe, J Connery (0-1), J Tunney; E Donnelly (0-2, 0-1 mark), J McGeough (0-1, 45); D Guinness, C McCullough, J Tunney, G Henderson; C Clinton (0-1, free), J Guinness. Subs: S McGonigle for McCann (32), J McFlynn for McCullough (50), C Rooney for McGonigle (56), R Reilly for Sherry (60)
Yellow cards: E Donnelly (12, 58), C Clinton (21, 30+5), D Guinness (34), J Connery (40), J Guinness (42, 49), M McGrath (60+8)
Red cards: C Clinton (30+5), J Guinness (49), E Donnelly (58)
Referee: M Moore (Warrenpoint)
