O’Loughlin Gaels (Kilkenny) 1-17 Ruairí Óg Cushendall (Antrim) 1-16
By the hair on their chinny-chin-chin – and no more – O’Loughlin Gaels are into the All-Ireland final against Galway champions St Thomas’.
But then if this campaign has taught us anything it’s that the tiniest margin is all they need. Since the last weekend in October, they’ve won a Kilkenny final, a Leinster final and an All-Ireland semi-final by a single point scored in injury-time.
It means that you could fill a pretty doleful room on January 23rd with representatives of Ballyhale, Na Fianna and Cushendall, all of them watching the All-Ireland final sick to the gills that they’re not in it.
Like the Dublin champions and the previously unbeatable Shamrocks in Kilkenny, Cushendall had every chance to usher O’Loughlin Gaels from the premises here. And yet it’s Brian Hogan’s side who are still standing as the smoke clears. Again.
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“From the beginning of the year, we’ve been trying to drive home to the lads how much we believe in them, in the quality they have,” Hogan said afterwards. “They can really hurl. I still feel they haven’t gone out and expressed themselves to what they can do. But I suppose winning tight matches like that really instils the winning belief in the players.
“Albeit you don’t want to be going to the well every day, it really does reinforce that sense of belief coming down the line. The lads know the fitness is there. The work Mickey Comerford has done, they know they’ve burned a couple of teams coming into the last 10 minutes of matches. They have that in the memory bank.
“But they have the composure as well. They know how to make the right decision. Paddy [Deegan] came out, popped the ball to David [Fogarty]. David has done it before, he knows he has it in his arsenal, he stroked the ball over.”
Hogan was describing the last score of the game, the one that put the Kilkenny champions into the lead for only the second time all day. Cushendall had a chance to equalise soon after, when Neil McManus got out in front of Deegan to collect and jink left before turning to shoot over his right shoulder.
He was the one man they wanted on the ball more than anyone but his radar let him down here. He pulled his shot marginally to the left and O’Loughlin Gaels were out the gap.
It was a rotten way for Cushendall’s year to end. They made a mockery of their underdog status throughout this semi-final, wiring into the Leinster champions from the outset and never once allowing them to feel like this was going to be anything short of a gruelling test.
Indeed it was far more than that for the opening quarter, as Cushendall bounced out to a 1-6 to 0-1 lead and threatened to run away with the whole thing.
In their wildest dreams, they couldn’t have imagined a better opening to the game. They met the moment with such ferocity and skill that O’Loughlin Gaels just had no answer.
Joe McLaughlin, the 18-year-old schoolboy corner forward, buried their goal on five minutes after Mikey Butler had his pocket picked by Niall McCormack. Eoghan Campbell came steaming forward from centre-back to land two towering efforts. Everywhere you looked, maroon jerseys were munching their way through white ones.
All the Kilkenny champions could do was hunker down and wait for the storm to pass. Mark Bergin started tick-tocking frees, Conor Heary worked his way into the game.
They got a reprieve when McLaughlin’s attempt at a second goal skittered back off the post on 20 minutes and used their life to cash in with a point at the other end in the next breath.
It was a masterclass in staying alive. Cushendall had a decent wind at their backs and needed to build on their lead to make full use of it. instead, they saw it shrink by degrees as the half wore on and when Sean Bolger bundled home a messy goal five minutes before the break, the gap was suddenly down to just one. McManus closed out the half with a couple of frees but a three-point lead felt like half a loaf.
O’Loughlin’s confirmed as much by rattling off the first three points after the restart through Bergin (two) and Eoin O’Shea.
But Cushendall weren’t lying down and so now we had a game that rocked and rolled all the way to Christmas. McManus kept inching Cushendall ahead, from frees mostly but a couple from play too.
Deegan, Bergin and Heary ate up the ground for O’Loughlin’s and when Bergin whipped his fourth from play on 51 minutes, the Kilkenny champions had their first lead of the day.
Cushendall nipped them back through McLoughlin and McManus and we were level at 1-16 apiece deep into injury-time. But when it came down to it, Fogarty scored and McManus missed and everything else was rendered irrelevant.
Cushendall: Conor McAlister; Paddy Burke (0-1), Liam Gillan, Martin Burke; Scott Walsh, Eoghan Campbell (0-2), Ruairí McCollam; Francis McCurry, Ryan McCambridge (0-1); Ronan McAteer (0-1), Neil McManus (0-9, 0-7 frees), Fergus McCambridge; Ed McQuillan (0-1), Niall McCormack, Joe McLaughlin (1-1). Subs: Seán McAfee for McAteer, 23 mins; Alex Delargy for McCormack, half-time; Aidan McNaughton for Gillan, half-time; Stephen Walsh for McCollam, 48 mins; Christy McNaughton for McCurry, 30 mins
O’Loughlin Gaels: Stephen Murphy; Tony Forristal, Huw Lawlor, Mikey Butler; David Fogarty (0-2), Paddy Deegan (0-1), Jordan Molloy; Jack Nolan (0-1), Cian Loy; Mark Bergin (0-9, 0-5 frees), Eoin O’Shea (0-1), Conor Heary (0-2); Owen Wall, Luke Hogan, Sean Bolger (1-1). Subs: Conor Kelly for Bolger, 44 mins; Jamie Ryan for Nolan, 65 mins; Paddy Butler for O’Shea, 57 mins
Referee: Michael Kennedy (Tipperary)
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