AIB Connacht Club SFC final: Coolera-Strandhill (Sligo) 1-15 Pádraig Pearses (Roscommon) 1-14 (aet)
It was the upset that no-one saw coming. No-one outside of one seaside parish in Sligo at least.
Within the confines of the Coolera-Strandhill dressing room, however, they did. While everyone else looked at Pádraig Pearses putting St Brigid’s and Corofin to the sword and saw power and strength, Sligo footballer Niall Murphy and his club colleagues sensed blood in the water.
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“I remember we sat on Dr Hyde Park last year, we lost to Brigid’s, we were embarrassed” he said of that 0-13 to 1-3 defeat a year ago, where they didn’t score for the first 40 minutes.
“Peter Laffey, I remember him saying to me, ‘If we ever get this chance again, we’re going to take it’. He texted me that before the Ballina game, and we were ready.
“We always believed, honestly. I said it after the Ballina game, we’d an expectation to win, and we came here today with an expectation to win. No one outside the county gave us any thought because we were from Sligo, but we knew, we honestly knew.”
After making a fast start, with Oran Harte and Kevin Banks kicking points as they moved 0-4 to 0-2 clear with 15 minutes played, the action in Markievicz Park suggested that all the pre-match pundits were correct, and that Pádraig Pearses would just be too good.
Eoin Colleran shook off his recent injury to kick some good points, Jack Tumulty terrorised the Coolera-Strandhill defence with his pace and energy, while Declan Kenny continues to look like a rising star as he punched hole after hole with his rampaging runs from half-back.
The South Roscommon side, Connacht champions in 2021, led by 0-7 to 0-5 at half time.
A majestic Keelan Harte kick from 55 metres halved that gap after the break but it felt like the contest was Pearses’ to lose when Paul Carey forced a turnover at midfield and two passes later, Tumulty was impeded as he went to shoot for goal.
Kenny slotted home the penalty, Colleran followed up with a free, and there was no obvious way back. Or at least, it wasn’t obvious if you weren’t a member of Johnny McPartland’s panel.
“In training we replicate things, when you’re two, three, four down. We spoke about it in the dressing room, whatever comes at us is fine” said Murphy.
“We were prepared for all situations, all scenarios; we’ve had everything thrown at us over the last two years, so there was never going to be any panic”.
Pearses’ dire shooting helped, as the Rossies racked up 14 wides and six shots dropped short across the 80 minutes, a lot more than Coolera-Strandhill’s meagre wide count of four.
Adam Higgins changed the game when he came off the bench, kicking three points and giving the winners a fantastic injection of pace and line-breaking.
While both sides had chances to win it at the death, with Mark McDaniel sending what looked like the match-winner wide of the target from 25 metres after he had done all the hard work to open up a free shot,
Instead Coolera-Strandhill didn’t miss a beat, picking up where they left off. Niall Murphy kicked his fifth point, a testament to his ability to stay in a game where David Murray was causing him plenty of problems, but the real break was when Murphy floated a long free into the box and Ross Doherty came up with the vital touch, punching the ball into the top corner of the net to push the lead out to four points.
Pearses piled on the pressure and were able to cancel out three of those. To Murphy’s delight however, not a fourth.
So to Murphy, who has played for his county, played in Croke Park, played for Ireland, where did this win rank?
“Ah top, by a million miles. Nothing even comes close to it. Absolutely nothing comes close to it”.
PÁDRAIG PEARSES: P Whelan; G Downey, D Murray, N Carty; D Kenny (1-2, 1-0 pen), C Keogh, C Harley; C Ryan (0-1), N Daly; C Daly (0-2), R Daly, A McGreal; E Colleran (0-5, 0-4f), P Carey, J Tumulty (0-3, 0-1f).
Subs: S Canning for McGreal (40), C Lohan for Downey (50), J Nevin (0-1) for Tumulty (51); E Kelly for Carey (60); Tumulty for Kelly (full-time), M Richardson for Canning (72), Kelly for Keogh (73).
Yellow cards: Carey (40)
COOLERA STRANDHILL: K Harte (0-1); C McDonagh, S Taylor (0-1), S Murphy; J Cassidy, R O’Carroll (0-1), O Harte (0-1); K Banks (0-2), P Laffey; A O’Boyle (0-1), B O’Mahony, R Doherty (1-0); L Doherty, N Murphy (0-5, 0-4f), M McDaniel.
Subs : A Higgins (0-3) for O’Boyle (36), L Bree for Cassidy (68), H Rooney for L Doherty (70+1), C Burke for Banks (76).
Yellow cards: Bates (20).
REFEREE: T Murphy (Galway)