No robbery as Kildare's late salvo denies Louth

O'BYRNE CUP FINAL: Kildare 3-9 Louth 2-9:TIME PRACTICALLY up and Louth are again clutching at a Leinster trophy.

Wait, what’s this? It’s suddenly whipped clean out of their hands – right in the broad winter Newbridge daylight.

But unlike their Leinster final experience last July this wasn’t daylight robbery. Kildare simply ambushed them with two perfectly legit goals inside the last minute to secure a hard-fought and certainly not undeserved O’Byrne Cup – their ninth and first since 2003.

Louth had been in front almost since the off, and late in the first half were up by eight points. But they couldn’t quite kill the game, not with Kildare refusing to surrender despite their repeated squandering of scoring chances.

So, with the clock spilled into the two minutes of added time, Emmet Bolton is pulled down in front of goal. Kildare’s Ronan Sweeney coolly converts the penalty.

Eoghan O’Flaherty then wins the kick out and passes off to Eamonn Callaghan. Although his shot falls short, goalkeeper Seán O’Connor can’t hold it, and with that in pops Keith Cribbin for the glorious winner – much to the delight of the home crowd.

“No, no, we can’t say we were robbed this time,” said Louth manager Peter Fitzpatrick. “I thought we played some good football, and in fairness, with 10 minutes to go had loads of opportunities to kill the game. All we needed was another point. We just seemed to take the wrong option. Trying to go for goals instead of points.

“But Kildare kept coming at us and coming at us. They got two goals in the space of a minute, and fair play to them. So no complaints at all. Overall though, I’d be happy with the performance. I thought we played very well. But if you don’t score enough in the end you don’t deserve to win. Maybe we got a wee bit tired in the last minutes as well.”

Louth were certainly keenly competitive in their third successive final, and for most of the first half showed the greater hunger.

After just 10 minutes Derek Maguire set off on a blazing solo that seemed to catch the Kildare defence off-guard, and indeed Maguire looked surprised himself at the ease with which he finished his run with a blasting shot straight to the net.

He added a point moments later – and after a succession of frees from Shane Lennon, Maguire claimed his second goal on 35 minutes, this time well set up by Ronan Carroll.

At that stage Kildare were 2-7 to 0-5 in arrears, and although Pádraig O’Neill sneaked in for a close range goal just before the break, things clearly had to improve if they were to halt Louth’s dominance.

Manager Kieran McGeeney is known to conjure some inspiration in the dressingroom (usually with a direct order to improve) and this was no exception.

Straightaway Kildare assaulted the Louth goalmouth and although they did repeatedly misfire or under-fire, a point from Alan Smith and frees from Karl Ennis and O’Flaherty brought them back to within a goal, 2-9 to 1-9, with five minutes left.

All that was left after that was their two late goals to win it.

“We possibly got out of jail,” said McGeeney, “but I thought maybe in the second half we missed enough to win three games. There was a four-minute period for them too at the end of the first half where they scored 1-4, mostly off our own mistakes. I thought in the second half we owned possession, but still made some very poor decisions up front . . . getting into scoring positions but kicking it away.”

Kildare’s victory pushes them top of the O’Byrne Cup roll of honour, their ninth win now one clear of Meath – but the real push on starts next Sunday when they travel to Antrim in their Division Two opener.

Likewise for Louth, who face Westmeath in Division Three – and this game will have left both teams in good spirits.

You can’t ask anything more of the O’Byrne Cup.

KILDARE:S Connolly; H McGrillan (0-1), M Foley, C Fitzpatrick; E Bolton (0-1), M Scanlon, D Whyte (0-1, 45); H Lynch, P O'Neill (1-0); T Moolick, E O'Callaghan, E O'Flaherty (0-2, frees); K Ennis (0-2, frees), W Heffernan, A Smith (0-2). Subs:F Dowling for Heffernan (23 mins), R Sweeney (1-0, penalty) for Moolick (half-time), K Cribbin (1-0) for Ennis (65 mins), B Flanagan for Bolton (70 mins).

LOUTH:S O'Connor; E McAuley, A Hoey, G Hoey; R Finnegan, D Flanagan, S Fitzpatrick; P Keenan (0-1), R Carroll; D Crill, M Brennan, B Donnelly; D Maguire (2-1), S Lennon (0-7, five frees), A Reid. Subs:A McDonnell for Donnelly (29 mins), R Greene for McAuley (55 mins), P Smith for Reid (65 mins), JP Rooney for Maguire (68 mins).

Referee:G McCormack (Dublin).