System failure as Geraldines the only losers
Anchor Tours SFC Group C St Patrick’s 1-13 Dundalk Gaels 0-12
Everyone’s a winner baby, that’s the truth.
SO goes the old Hot Chocolate hit, but the Geraldines certainly weren’t singing along as St Patrick’s and Dundalk Gaels shaded a three-way tie in Group C of the Senior Championship on Sunday night.
A four-point win for the Pat’s in Castletown sent them through to the quarter-finals as group winners, but the Gaels desperately clung to their coat-tails by keeping the losing margin below six points.
The Gers are the odd-men-out and it’s sure to leave a sour taste in the mouth for Wayne Callan and his players who have to dust themselves down for a relegation battle next month.
Unfortunately, they’re not the first - nor the last - side to suffer the injustice of eviction triggered by the result of a game they are not involved in.
The very same fate befell O Raghallaigh’s the following evening as O’Connells lost to St Joseph’s, but still topped the group, while their neighbours joined them in the last eight as runners-up.
While there’s certainly no suggestion of any wrong-doing on the part of any of the teams involved, there’s something deeply troubling about a team being eliminated from the championship in this manner and it remains a fundamental flaw of the three-team group system.
Any Geraldines supporters at the Clans could see the writing on the wall quite early on as Pat’s stormed into fivepoint lead inside 10 minutes.
The 2015 champs simply had to win to advance and they came up with the perfect gameplan to overcome the Gaels’ tried-and-trusted blanket defence, pressing their opponents high up the pitch. At times the Pat’s only had two men back inside their own half as they swarmed the middle third and broke lines with welltimed runs off the shoulder.
It was reminiscent of the Blues’ approach to last year’s senior final and it worked a treat as a couple of Danny O’Connor frees and a fine score from Aidan McCann got Pat’s off to a flyer.
Derek Crilly replied for the Gaels, but Pats were well on top and three more quick points from Thomas McCann, Dessie Finnegan and Cathal Grogan made it 6-1 after just 10 minutes.
It was clear even at that stage that the Gaels would be relying on damage limitation to keep their campaign afloat but when Pats made it 0-8 to 0-2 they were officially in the danger zone.
And it got worse before the break when a David McComish error allowed Danny O’Connor a clear run at goal. The angle wasn’t perfect, but O’Connor made light of it with a stunning finish to the far top corner, making it 1-9 to 0-4 at the break.
At that stage Pat’s and Geraldines were en route to the quarter-finals, but while the game itself was probably now beyond the Gaels they still had a much more realistic target of keeping the deficit below six points to aim for.
They actually fell further behind as a superb Leonard Grey ‘45’ put nine points between the sides, but four points on the spin from Ger McSorley, David Maloney, twice, and Niall Hearty, quickly whittled it back to that magic five-point mark.
But that purple patch also jolted Pat’s back to life and with O’Connor in devastating form and unerring over frees they re-established a seven-point cushion, 1-13 to 0-9.
From that point on it was all about the Gaels reducing the deficit and points from Ger McSorley and Eanna McArdle brought it back to five with just a couple of minutes of normal time remaining.
They still had six minutes of injury-time to endure, but Gaels did most of the pressing and McSorley made absolutely sure with a late free.
DUNDALK GAELS: Micheal Lambert; David McComish, Jamie Faulkner, Peter McGinnity; Seán Murray, Barry Watters, David Moloney 0-3; James Stewart, Derek Crilly 0-1; Jason Clarke, Éanna McArdle 0-3f, Niall Hearty 0-1; Eamonn Kenny, Ger McSorley 0-4 (2f), Conall McArdle. Subs: Padraig Fallon for P McGinnity (ht), Errol Boyle for C McArdle (43), Óisín Murray for N Hearty (48).
ST. PATRICK’S: Barry Corcoran; Ross Murphy, Darren O’Hanlon, Rory Duffy; Ray Finnegan, Eoghan Lafferty, Conor Grogan 0-1; Dessie Finnegan 0-2, Thomas McCann 0-1; Evan White, Danny O’Connor 1-6 (3f), Leonard Grey 0-1 (1‘45’); Jason Woods, Cathal Grogan 0-1, Aidan McCann 0-1. Subs: Tadhg O’Connor for R Duffy (51), Patrick Kirk for E Lafferty (BC, 56), Seán McGeough for Tadhg O’Connor (60+).
REFEREE: Colin Halligan (Sean O’Mahony’s).