Super Saints end their 13-year wait
St Mary’s 1-13
Dreadnots 2-9
ST Mary’s topsy-turvy season took another dramatic twist on Saturday night as the Ardee men booked their first county final appearance for 13 years.
Darren Clarke - one of the few survivors from that 2003 replay defeat to Pat’s - popped up with a last-gasp winner, adding another agonising chapter to Dreadnots’ tales of woe.
After losing two finals in 2012 and 2014 the Clogherhead men have now bowed out at the semi-final stage for the past two seasons, prompting one canny observer at McGeough Park to dub them the Mayo of Louth football.
This one might even hurt the most as with Pat’s out of the way, Colm Donnelly’s men were being widely tipped to land their first ever Joe Ward, with the main threat considered to be Sean O’Mahony’s.
Losing James Califf so early certainly wouldn’t have helped their cause.
The Louth man started the game with his thigh heavily strapped and it became obvious after the first couple of passages of play that his mobility was severely hampered.
He evntually departed after 15 minutes, but Mary’s will point out that they too were hit hard by injury when their championship top score Alan Kirk pulled up two minutes before that.
The corner forward appeared to pick up a hamstring tear and will now be in a race against time to be fit for Sunday week.
So it was honours even in the injury department as both teams lost very valuable sources of scores from play and frees and there was little to spearate the sides on the scoreboard either.
Mary’s looked the better side from the start, but some dreadful shooting in the opening half and two sucker punch goals at the other end, ensured they were playing catch-up for quite some time.
And yet they looked sharper, hungrier and more composed.
Dermot Campbell netted Dreadnots’ first goal after just 17 seconds, but tellingly it was a further 17 minutes before they scored again - another goal, this one drilled low to the net by Peter Kirwan after an unfortunate slip by Brendan Matthews.
Mary’s dominated the period in between those two strikes and after kicking seven wides in the opening eight minutes they eventually strung a few scores together with the superb Paudy Clarke kicking three and Mark Fay also on target.
They even led momentarily before Kirwan’s goal, but they stayed calm and did hit the front again on the half-hour mark as Darren Clarke converted a couple of frees and then played a short one to Paudy Clarke for his fourth point of the night.
Chris Mulroy eventually kicked Dreadnots first point on the stroke of half-time, but with just three scores on the board, there was a lot to debate in the Clogherhead dressing room at the interval.
But within five minutes they had slipped a goal behind as Daire McConnon drifted in from the right to make it 1-8 to 2-2.
To be fair to Dreadnots they responded bravely, kicking the next four points to regain the lead.
But again Mary’s refused to panic and that man Paudy Clarke hit back with two points in a minute to wrestle back the lead.
But Dreadnots certainly weren’t lying down either and the lead swung again when Paraic Smith converted three frees, with just a McConnon point in reply from Mary’s, making it 2-9 to 1-11 with three minutes on the clock.
The tension was running at full throttle at that stage, but Darren Clarke has made a career of thriving under that kind of pressure and he levelled it up again with a free.
A draw and replay looked the most likely outcome at that stage, but Mary’s, perhaps sensing this was their big chance, had other ideas.
They came again and McConnon and Paudy Clarke worked the ball to Darren Clarke and like Cillian O’Connor at the end of Sunday’s All-Ireland final, the right man had it.
This time Dreadnots had no response, other than a second yellow card for David O’Brien in injury-time.
The Saints march on. The 13-year wait is over. Now for the 21-year itch! ST MARY’S: Peter Duffy; Conor Keenan, Karl Faulkner, Brendan Matthews; Eimhin Keenan, John Bingham 0-1, Niall Eccles; Ronan Carroll, Robert Leavy; Daire McConnon 1-1, Paudy Clarke 0-6, Mark Fay 0-1; Barry Faulkner, Darren Clarke 0-4 (3f), Alan Kirk. Subs: Dean Matthews for A Kirk (13), S McCoy for B Matthews (40).
DREADNOTS: Ciaran Cunningham; Brian Gargan, Padraig Rath, Derek Shevlin; Anthony Williams, Cian McEvoy, Dermot Campbell 1-0; James Califf, David O’Brien; Barry Faulkner 0-1, Paraic Smith 0-4f, Conor Campbell; Peter Kirwan 1-3, Richard Kirwan, Chris Mulroy 0-1. Subs: Fergal McGuigan for J Califf (15), Pat Lynch for C Mulroy (ht), Liam Shevlin for P Kirwan (37).
REFEREE: David J McArdle.