Cumann Lúthchleas Gael Uladh

Extra time drama in both Rafferty Cup semis

November 23rd, 2017

Rafferty Cup semi-finals :
Holy Trinity Cookstown 2-14 St Patrick’s Armagh 3-10 AET
St Patrick’s Keady 1-8 St Eunan’s Letterkenny AET
Both semi-finals in the Danske Bank Rafferty Cup yesterday went to extra time before Holy Trinity Cookstown and St Patrick’s Keady each emerged with single point margins of victory to contest next week’s final.
Up in Garvaghey St Eunan’s Letterkenny looked to have won when they came back from a three points deficit and went two points up in the first half of extra time, holding Keady scoreless for more than 30 minutes’ play.
However in the second half of extra time, Joe Sheridan got St Patrick’s going again with a free, Ciaran Donnelly levelled the game at 1-7 to 0-10 and then Patrick Kerr fired over the winning point with three minutes to go.
St Eunan’s looked the better team for large parts of the game and Keady’s heroes were in defence, Paddy Hughes and Ruairi McCann, with Ciaran Donnelly the key forward.
After the first quarter St Eunan’s led by 0-4 to 0-2, but points from Donnelly and Louis Hughes levelled the game by half-time. The key moment of the third quarter and, in hindsight of the game, came in the 44th minute when Donnelly got inside the cover and goaled.
But Caolan Collier (2) and Dylan Duggan drew St Eunan’s level on 52 minutes at 1-5 to 0-8, and that was how it remained until extra time.
Over in Clonoe, first half goals from Tiarnan Mackle and Shea Quinn seemed to put Holy Trinity in the driving seat and they led by 2-5 to 1-2 at the break with Michael McCaughey the Armagh goal-scorer.
Odhran Houlihan fisted home a goal for Armagh within ten seconds of the throw-in for the second half and McCaughey added a second goal as they went 3-4 to 2-5 up. A series of Cookstown points followed however and a fine Mark Devlin free brought the game to extra time.
Exchanges were close during the extra 20 minutes of play before Sean Gallagher’s free tied the teams on 2-13 to 3-10 and Odhran Mulgrew posted the winning score for Cookstown with a minute left.
St Patrick’s Keady : Ciaran Donnelly 1-3, Joe Sheridan 0-2, Louis Hughes 0-1, Oisin Murphy 0-1, Patrick Kerr 0-1
St Eunan’s Caolan Collier 0-4, Eoin Dowling 0-2, Dylan Duggan 0-2, Oran Winston 0-1, Eoin Dowling 0-1, Conor McGinty 0-1.
Holy Trinity : Shea Quinn 1-3, Tiarnan Mackle 1-0, Mark Devlin 0-7, Jaime Coleman 0-1, Jamie Bloomer 0-1, Sean Gallagher 0-1, Odhran Mulgrew 0-1.
St Patrick’s Armagh : Michael McCaughey 2-0, Odhran Houlihan 1-0, Michael McGleenan 0-5, Kevin Robinson 0-3, Michael McKenna 0-1, Sean Quigley 0-1

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