Cormac Leonard Commercials Armagh SFC Group C, round two
Maghery 2-12 Clann Eireann 2-11
IN A game of strike and counter-strike, it was Maghery who landed the decisive final blow. In the fourth minute of injury-time, Stefan Forker kept his composure to launch a free over the bar and hand Clann Eireann, the Division 1A champions, only their second defeat of this season.
All-Ireland winner Conor Turbitt had been sent off for a push/strike with 10 minutes left of a game that fairly rattled along from first whistle to last.
Home side Maghery were direct and got the ball up to full-forward Ronan Lappin at every opportunity. Meanwhile, visitors Clann Eireann, who were without Tiernan Kelly (shoulder injury), used their nippy forwards to put together intricate passing moves for many of their scores.
There’s no doubting the talent in the team but there were echoes of last season’s semi-final loss to Clan na Gael in the way Clann Eireann lost discipline and faded in the home stretch and manager Ruairi Lavery hopes the loss will be a timely reminder for his players.
“You know what you’re going to get when you come to Maghery,” said Lavery.
“It’s a notoriously hard place to come and it proved to be again. We’ll take a lot of positives out of it because it’s exactly what we needed – a huge, intense test. We came out the wrong side of the result but I think it will stand by us.
“It was a battle, real championship-intensity right down to the wire and it could have went either way and there’s a lot of learnings, particularly over the last five minutes and what we can do better.”
Clann Eireann won their group opener by 10 points, while Maghery were denied a first-round win by a Madden goal and that will have made the win all the sweeter for the Loughshore men who were without Armagh star Ciaran Higgins on Saturday evening.
Manager Brendan Quinn was enticed across the Tyrone border from nearby Derrylaughan to take the reins of the 2016 and 2020 champions and was delighted to register his first championship victory.
“The lads deserve it,” he said.
“We thought we left two points behind last week so we had the bit between our teeth. We were looking for the same workrate we had last week and we got that in spades again and we came out on the right side of it this time.
“We’ve another tough game against St Peter’s next Friday evening so there’s plenty of work still to do.”
The game was level five times in the first half. It was 0-4 apiece when Kevin Robinson netted for Maghery and, although Conor McConville replied for the Lurgan natives and Ben Crealey was black-carded, the home side led 1-6 to 1-5 at the break.
The introduction of Barry McCambridge added pace and power to the Clann Eireann engineroom and despite Robinson’s superb finish for his second goal, the 2021 county champions took a temporary grip on the game. Ruairi McDonald scored their second major and points from Jack Conlon and an eye-of-a-needle finish from Sean McCarthy left daylight between the sides for the first time.
However, their momentum stalled after the dismissal of Turbitt after a midfield ‘schemozzle’ midway through the second half and Maghery put pressure on their defence with a succession of well-placed long balls off Aidan Forker’s left boot.
They managed five of the last six scores. Points from Padraig O’Keefe and Stefan Forker (two) brought the Sean McDermott’s back into it and Lappin turned and hooked the ball over the bar to level the game.
Clann Eireann broke in search of an injury-time winner but Aidan Forker and Matthew Mackle combined to stop their attack and when John Magee was adjudged to have fouled Lappin, Stefan Forker did the needful from the free.
The ‘group of death’ will come to the boil next weekend when Maghery travel to St Peter’s and Clann Eireann face Madden.
Maghery E Cusack; E Scullion; A Forker (0-1), M Mackle; J Mackle, R Branagan, S Toye; S fox, B Crealey (0-1 mark); T Toye, S Forker (0-4, 0-1 free), K McConville; K Robinson (2-2, 0-1 mark), R Lappin (0-1 mark), P O’Keefe (0-2)
Subs C Lappin (0-1) for McConville (40), N McAlinden for T Toye (45)
Yellow card S Forker (45)
Black card Crealey (20-30)
Clann Eireann E Mulholland; C O’Carroll, M O’Shea, O Downey; A Kelly, S McCarthy (0-2), E Magee (0-1); J Magee, C McConville (1-0); D Magee, R Meehan (0-1), E McKenna (0-3); R McDonald (1-1), C Turbitt, D Mallon
Subs B McCambridge (0-1) for Mallon (HT), J Conlon (0-2) for Downey (40), J Magee (60)
Yellow cards E Magee (45), D Magee (48)
Red card Turbitt (45)
