ST VINCENT'S 0-11 ST LOMAN'S 0-9: Handed a wish list for this fixture, it's hard to think what more the Westmeath champions could have requested. St Vincent's arrived in Mullingar yesterday having played two county finals in the pervious week and with Dublin All-Ireland-winning forward Diarmuid Connolly suspended.
As if the Dubliners four days after their replay win over Leinster champions Ballymun hadn’t enough on their plate, their other Dublin star, centre back Ger Brennan, was shown a straight red card before seven minutes had elapsed.
Yet from then on they held out and for the vast preponderance of the match, were in front.
A young St Loman's side, having won a first county title this year, were left ruing their inability to make more of both the extra man and their captain and talisman John Heslin, whose scoring binges had been such a feature of the club's progress this season.
The loss
He began well, wandering into acres of space to open the scoring. Yet maybe the course of the match actually helped Vincent's in that the loss of Brennan – for an apparent incident involving Kelvin Reilly – must have ramped up their adrenalin levels to a point where they forgot about fatigue and any lingering notion of complacency and instead put their heads down.
It was two former Dublin players who had the biggest impact. At centrefield Eamon Fennell dominated the kick-outs, especially in the first half, and ploughing an at times lone furrow up front, Tomás Quinn was excellent.
He showed tirelessly for the ball, took the brunt of defensive attentions and kicked accurately, just sending one free wide on an afternoon when he scored seven points.
Quinn also set up his team’s best goal chance when dropping the ball across the square for Adam Baxter’s fisted contact to send it narrowly wide into the side-netting.
In goal Michael Savage stopped the alarming start to the match becoming a crisis when he saved one-on-one from Shane Dempsey and also blocked for a ‘45’ Kelvin Reilly’s shot off the rebound.
Dempsey pushed Loman’s 0-3 to 0-2 ahead on 15 minutes, a lovely curling shot after stepping in from the left corner but somehow the Dublin champions regained the initiative. Two frees from Quinn and points from Ciarán Dorney, from a turnover, and Gavin Burke meant that they led 0-6 to 0-4 at half-time.
Loman’s used the already deep-lying corner forward Paul Sharry as the spare man and he worked hard shuttling backwards and forwards but the Westmeath champions rarely looked as if they had a numerical advantage.
A low-scoring third quarter was their best phase. Steven Gallagher saved well from Dorney and a couple of frees from Heslin – whose dead-ball shooting was uncharacteristically tentative – plus another point by Reilly pushed them ahead.
Surging run
A double save by Gallagher and Steven Gilmore from Quinn and Kevin Golden set up a '45' for Quinn to level the match and after that they outscored their opponents 0-3 to 0-1.
Heslin had countered another free plus a score from play by Quinn with a point of his own but a great surging run by Vincent’s full back Jarlath Curley set up Ruairí Trainor for the final score in injury-time.
"I played on some good teams," said relieved manager Tommy Conroy, "went watching some great teams in Vincent's but I think now that team, what they did against Ballymun and what they did today is fantastic. We were down in the second half and to turn it around shows great character.
“I thought Mossie was great inside. He took an awful lot of punishment and was still able to kick the scores when needed. It’s fantastic for the club.”
He said that they’d review the video evidence of the Brennan incident: “Ger is adamant that he didn’t strike. The linesman didn’t see it. We’ll have a look at it.”
Conroy said there had already been dressing-room jokes about getting their best 15 back – in the absence of Connolly and Brennan who had both missed matches due to county commitments – for the semi-final against Summerhill.
St Loman's manager Declan Rowley explained how they hadn't made more of the one-man advantage.
Very difficult
"It was very difficult in the sense we were always trying to protect our back-line because we felt our back-line needed a little bit of protection so as a result you leave him (the spare man) sitting there.
“What I did say at half-time was that when we were in possession we needed that man to push along with the play but we were inclined to give off the ball and stand and as a result it negated our extra man. St Vincent’s always had a man sitting on front of John Heslin and we couldn’t get him good ball in.
"John has been unerring all year and our game has been very reliant on him. He missed chances today he certainly wouldn't miss other days and it certainly impacted on our performance, our scores as well because normally we can kick 1-14 or 15, 16 points. It is very hard, John has been going all year, he's been flat out and he came up against a tight back-line that was covering him with an extra man all the time."
ST VINCENT'S: M Savage; M Concarr, J Curley, H Gill; C Diamond, G Brennan (capt.), B Egan; M Loftus, E Fennell; G Burke (0-1), T Diamond, C Dorney (0-2); R Trainor (0-1), A Baxter, T Quinn (0-7, five frees and 45). Subs: K Bonnie for T Diamond (21 mins), S Carthy for Burke (33 mins), K Golden for Loftus (38 mins), D Murphy for Baxter (42 mins), N Mullins for Dorney (66 mins).
ST LOMAN'S MULLINGAR: S Gallagher; S Gilmore, S Flynn, J O'Toole; P Dowdall, G Glennon, D Rushe; C Kilmurray, W McGovern (0-1); C Reilly, K Reilly (0-2), E Price; P Sharry, J Heslin (capt; 0-4, two frees), S Dempsey (0-2). Subs: C Cochrane for Rushe (29 mins). S Gilmore for Dowdall (50 mins), G Hickey for C Reilly (66 mins).
Referee: D Brazil (Offaly
