Connacht SFC Final/ St Brigid's 1-10 Corofin 3-3:On a dark, billowing afternoon made for local heroes in Roscommon town, the curtains came down on the west of Ireland football year with a wild and incredibly dramatic match - this result signalling the fact that Connacht is not just a two-horse province.
With the Primrose county still celebrating the achievement of their All-Ireland winning minor boys, St Brigid's - long the heavyweight team on the local scene - claimed the club's first ever Connacht football championship with an injury-time goal from Karol Mannion.
By then, both clubs seemed to have won and lost this final several times over and the fans had long given up trying to guess what would happen next. In a way, Mannion's goal was the only logical conclusion to a robust and strange game which kept taking unexpected turns, one of those dreamily struck thunderbolts that seem to travel in slow motion and are generally produced only in dreams.
"I knew it was probably our last chance and I really wanted it because I felt that the two Corofin goals in the first half were my fault," said the delighted Mannion after the final whistle. "We knew if we kept going right until the wire, we would get the chance. After their penalty, they were two points up with two minutes to go and we knew we were under pressure.
"But if you got a chance you were going to take it. I just had to beat one man and then it opened up for me. And thank God, it went in."
Corofin took the lonesome road south offering alms of a different nature. What a puzzling afternoon for the east Galway luminaries.
Their afternoon began with the news that the team captain, Alan O'Donovan, would not be starting. It seemed an odd development given his accomplished and rangy performance against Caltra, but his form reportedly dipped in the mean time.
In a hectic and scoreless first 10 minutes, his replacement, Emmet Killeen, distinguished himself only by getting sent off for felling Donal O'Connor after just four minutes. Facing into one of those classically hostile Hyde Park breezes, Corofin's position suddenly looked bleak.
So they promptly nailed two invaluable goals, both from the midfielders Aidan Donnellan and Greg Higgins. Donnellan's was a sweet finish to a patient build-up while Higgins's was an old-fashioned catch and shoot from a sideline delivery by Kieran Comer.
It took the Roscommon champions a full 18 minutes to register a score but Senan Kilbride's fine strike engineered a memorable response.
For the remainder of the half, St Brigid's were all movement and finesse, with Mark O'Carroll banging home three wonderful points from play and Frankie Dolan running the show with a series of clever, lateral passes that always seemed to wrong-foot the Corofin defence. When full back Pádraig Kilcommins presented himself in glory country to boom over a massive equalising score, you had the feeling it was Roscommon's day.
Corofin, though, had other ideas. Clearly running low on batteries, they dug in and enjoyed exceptionally valorous performances from Gary Sice, Damien Burke, Kieran Fitzgerald and the battling Comer.
There was a messy incident just after half-time when Sice was felled and then, with mentors on the field, selector Joe Sice appeared to be knocked over by Dolan.
Play resumed with no cautions, Corofin worked a couple of points but Roscommon were in the ascendant.
Using their extra man well, they played the spaces and showed great composure in looking for scores into the wind, their 44th-minute point involving Ger Aherne and Dolan and completed by corner back Robbie Kelly.
If St Brigid's made a mistake, it was not seeking to kill the game there and then. A scoreless six minutes followed and when a long, high ball came dropping into the St Brigid's square, Sice and then substitute Shane Monaghan were brought to the ground.
The penalty was a lifeline and by then the Corofin captain O'Donovan was on the field. His right-footed strike was brave and looked effortless and two minutes later, Robbie Kelly was sent-off for a second yellow card.
St Brigid's looked broken then and when Tom Costello sauntered into open country before calmly clipping his first point from play to leave it 3-3 to 0-10, it looked like the age-old Connacht story of Galway, yet again.
Then, with a vast Corofin crowd preparing for the celebratory invasion, Mannion collected a ball about 20 metres out, turned inside his man, took a couple of steps and let fly. It was an unstoppable shot, a miraculous football moment for parched Roscommon folks and the most hurtful of blows for Corofin.
"I was happy enough despite the result," maintained Corofin manager Paul McGettigan afterwards. "We had the winning of the game but we couldn't take it and were just caught with a sucker punch there at the end."
Chances are a famous day for Roscommon football turned into an equally wholehearted night. It was no more than manager Anthony Cunningham deserved as eventual champions Salthill denied St Brigid's at this stage last year.
It gives veteran Mannion and the iconic Dolan another chance to get back to Croke Park and will help to pass what would undoubtedly have been a dull and quiet winter for selector John O'Mahony.
ST BRIGID'S: J Martin; E Ruane, P Kilcommins (0-1), R Kelly (0-1); Donal O'Connor, G Aherne, N Grehan; M O'Carroll (0-3), K Mannion (1-0); J Tiernan, F Dolan (0-2, frees), B O'Brien (0-2); S Kilbride (0-1), David O'Connor, C McHugh. Subs: Cathal McHugh for Conor McHugh (43 mins); E Mannion for E Ruane (47 mins); I Kilbride for McHugh (51 mins); D Blake for S Kilbride (63 mins).
COROFIN: G Comer; K McGrath, K Fitzgerald, T Goggins; A Burke, D Burke, G Sice; A Donnellan (1-0), G Higgins (1-0); D Hanly, E Killeen, S Conlisk; T Costello (0-2, one free), D Morris, K Comer (0-1). Subs: A O'Donovan (1-0, pen)for Morris (43 mins); T Burke for Conlisk (46 mins); S Monaghan for Hanly (48 mins).
Referee: V Neary(Mayo).
