Quarter Final - Creggan V Cullyhanna
St Patricks’ Cullyhanna (Armagh) 1-4 V Kickhams Creggan (Antrim) 0-6
The opening score of yesterday’s Devlin Motors Ulster Under-21 Club Football Championship quarter-final proved to be decisive for St Patrick’s, Cullyhanna as they held on for a one-point win against hosts Creggan Kickhams.
Kyle McEvoy fired to the Creggan net after four minutes to give the Armagh champions the lead, and although the Saffron side clawed back to level at the break, Cullyhanna just edged a tight second half to take their place in the semi-finals.
Defences were on top throughout with just 11 scores produced over the 60 minutes.
The pacy Michael Murray, playing at half back, made a number of driving runs at the Creggan rearguard, while Conor Mc Cann was the playmaker at midfield for Creggan who settled well after conceding the early goal.
Hugh McNulty and Odhran McLarnon cut the gap to the minimum by the eighth minute before Gareth Mackin added Cullyhanna’s second and final score of the first half.
Paddy McAuley ended a scoreless 10-minutes, before Aidan McKeown leveled matters before the break.
Creggan will rue two scorable frees midway through the second half after Conor Nugent had restored Cullyhanna’s advantage just after the restart. McNulty found his range to level on 49 minutes but the Antrim side were never able to edge in front of Cullyhanna who gave themselves a two-point cushion through McEvoy as the final whistle approached.
McNulty made it a one-point game in the dying minutes but the St Patricks defence held firm as the Antrim men tried to force extra time.
“We have a lot of heart, commitment and character and they showed that again today and that’s hard to beat,” said winning manager Malachy Mackin.
“It was a tough game between two very hard, committed teams who really wanted to win. Creggan missed a few chances, we missed a few chances and we’re just very glad to get out of this. We knew this would be a difficult test, Creggan are a very strong physical team, and our boys had a lot of work to do to match them.
“We knew nothing about Creggan which is maybe a good thing because you can worry too much about other teams and forget about concentrating on your own skills and your own game-plan which is what we tried to do.”
Creggan boss Killian Conlon said his side will learn from the experience of Ulster club football.
“The early goal killed us. We felt that we should have got a score at the other end and they went straight down the field and got the goal. We showed great character to come back from that to level at half-time but to come out on the wrong side of the score by one point is gut wrenching,” he said.
“It was a huge learning curve for our lads and I’m proud of what they have achieved in their first game in Ulster. Cullyhanna played in the preliminary round last week and that probably stood to them on the day.”
Cullyhanna: D McArdle; K McCooey, D Mackin, M Murray; S Connell, E McArdle, C Hoey; P Casey, T Donnelly; R O’Neill, G McCooey, N Donnelly: K McEvoy (1-2), G Mackin (0-1), C Nugent (0-1)
Subs: K Hoey for N Donnelly, A Nugent for G McCooey
Creggan: M McKaigue; A Maguire, R Johnston, P McLarnon; D MCann, M Johnston, F McGrenaghan; C McCann, S Allen; P McAuley (0-1), D McGuckin, A McKeown (0-1); O McLarnon (0-1f), H McNulty (0-3, 1f), O McCann
Subs: F Burke for M McKaigue, T McLarnon for S Allen
Referee: B Cassidy (Derry)
Match Report by John Martin
Photos by Seamus Loughran