Ballinagh capture elusive crown

Ballinagh 1-07
Lavey 0-09

Ballinagh made up for last season’s disappointment when they were defeated by Drumalee in the IFC final after a replay, when on Sunday last at Kingspan/Breffni Park, Cavan they won their third intermediate championship title when they defeated Lavey on a scoreline of 1-7 to 0-9 in what was an interesting decider between two determined sides. Ballinagh started the game well and were ahead by 0-5 to 0-2. However, Lavey came back well and finished the half trailing by one point 0-5 to 0-4.

Ballinagh started the second-half in thrilling fashion with an early goal from Terry Smith after two minutes and they seemed to be on their way to the title success. However, Lavey as they have shown in this IFC campaign are tremendous battlers and they got themselves back in the game with points from Kevin Brady and Sean Maguire to reduce the leeway to two points with the game entering its final minutes. And then the real drama occurred as former county star, Seamus Donohoe introduced into the side in the closing minutes pointed following a ’45’ and we now had a one point game. Ballinagh to their credit never panicked and held out in the end for a deserved one point win.

The Ballinagh players and their manager, Bernard Morris will be delighted with this championship success. They have waited 12 months to win this title, but they will be first to admit they were given a real test by a Lavey side who have been one of the real surprise packets of this season’s IFC campaign, and have the potential like Ballinagh to come back next season and repeat what Ballinagh have achieved.

Ballinagh – Darragh McCarthy; A. Duffy, N. O’Reilly, K. McBride; C. Brady, Padraig O’Reilly, E. Brady; Cian McDermott, A. Maguire; C. Gumley 0-2, D. Finnegan 0-3, T. Smith 1-1; P. Galligan, A. Gaynor 0-1, N. McDermott.
Subs – Alan Durkin for D. Finnegan; P. Carroll for Enda Brady.

Lavey – J. Carolan; Joey Jordan, D. Smith, M. Tracey; S. Jordan, F. Jordan, T. Ferguson; Sean Maguire 0-4, D. Smith; K. Brady 0-4, D. Jordan, M. Brady; P. Brady, M. Cusack, S. Maguire.
Subs – D. Murphy for S. Maguire; David Walsh for Damien Smith; Seamus Donohoe 0-1 for M. Cusack and K. Donohoe for T. Ferguson.

Referee – Martin Sexton from Cavan Gaels.