West Mayo's sleeping giants to meet in Mayo senior football final

West Mayo's sleeping giants to meet in Mayo senior football final


Mike Finnerty
Castlebar

THIS year’s Mayo senior football championship final will be a very novel affair after West Mayo neighbours Castlebar Mitchels and Ballintubber emerged from Sunday’s semi-finals at McHale Park, Castlebar.
Last year’s beaten finalists Knockmore (who were long-time favourites to reclaim the Moclair Cup this season) were sensationally knocked out by Peter Ford’s Castlebar Mitchels in the first semi-final.
Ballintubber boss James Horan (one of three remaining candidates to be the next Mayo senior manager) then guided his home club to their first ever Mayo SFC final by beating Shrule/Glencorrib.
Castlebar, who appeared in their last county final in 1993, emerged from an entertaining tussle with Knockmore on the right side of a 1-10 to 0-11 scoreline.
Mayo star Barry Moran flicked in the all-important goal on six minutes while Knockmore also lost their inspirational centre-half back, Declan Sweeney, to injury in the same goalmouth incident.
The loss of the veteran defender was compounded by the absence of the experienced Kevin O’Neill. The former All Star attacker was unable to start due to a broken bone in his hand although he did come off the bench midway through the second half.
However, it was the rangy Barry Moran who did most of the damage early on and the Castlebar full-forward helped himself to 1-2 from play in the opening stages.
The eventual winners led at half-time by 1-3 to 0-4 and were four points clear at the end of the third quarter after a string of points from Neil Douglas, Aidan Walsh and Barry Moran.
But Knockmore came roaring back into contention as they were driven on by Mayo panellists Kevin McLoughlin, Trevor Howley and Aidan Kilcoyne.
Scores were mined by Kevin O’Neill (free), Kieran Langan, Kilcoyne and the impressive Damien Munnelly (who scored 0-5 in all) to level the match for only the second time on 58 minutes.
A draw looked highly likely at that stage but Castlebar got their second wind just in time and superb scores from Kevin Filan and Richie Feeney edged them home.
However, some of the gloss was taken off the victory when Filan was red-carded in injury-time after an off-the-ball incident.
The second semi-final was lacking in terms of both quality and excitement but that will be of little concern to Ballintubber after they made senior championship history.
They made all the early running against Kenneth Mortimer’s Shrule/Glencorrib and eventually came through on a 1-8 to 0-6 final scoreline.
Incredibly, the West Mayo side scored 1-5 in the first twenty minutes and then went almost forty minutes without raising another flag.
Shrule/Glencorrib never got going and, after taking 22 minutes to register a score themselves, they trailed at the break by 1-7 to 0-2. Man of the match, Jason Gibbons, bagged 1-1 for the winners in that first half.
Scores from Kieran Conroy, Conor Mortimer (free) and Mark Ronaldson (2) did close the deficit to four points by the end of the third quarter, but Ballintubber grabbed their only score of the half on 58 minutes through Alan Plunkett to seal victory.