AIB Ulster Club SFC semi-final: Clann Eireann 1-10 Errigal Ciaran 0-14
HOW much of this ‘Tyrone clubs don’t do Ulster’ lark is just a mindset?
In the space of a month, Errigal Ciaran have won as many games in the provincial championship as the county’s champions had combined since Omagh reached a final ten years ago.
There is just a different air about their prospects, always. Since they beat Lavey in their first game in Ulster 31 years ago, there’s always been something about the blue and amber sash.
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Cookstown joint-manager Jason Quinn doesn’t underestimate the challenge of Four Masters in the Ulster semi-final
Of 27 outings in the Ulster Club, they’ve won 17 and drawn three.
If they were so far ahead of anyone else in Tyrone football-wise then they wouldn’t have sat for ten years between 2012 and ’22 waiting on a county title.
But when they get out, they invariably go places that nobody else does.
In two weeks they will step into their fourth final. That’s as many as the rest of Tyrone combined.
We get it, it’s a team game. There is no greater team player than Darragh Canavan. If he had an open net he’d nearly pass the thing sideways if he thought someone else had an easier finish.
But Errigal Ciaran are blessed by the family’s presence on their turf.
Ruairi Canavan’s finishing bordered on the ridiculous. He kicked nine points, five of them from play.
His winner was a score you couldn’t leave in a mortal’s hands. A naturally right-footed player, he came on the loop under the stand side. The angle gave him nothing to work with on his left.
And for that reason, perhaps scared of getting burned twice by the trademark dummy that he’d just moments earlier sold to fashion a brilliant score on the right, Conan O’Carroll just stands off that yard, offers him the shot on the left.
Canavan takes it. The arc of the shot is perfect, starting far enough outside the near post that it stays inside the far post by the time it rests between them.
Clann Eireann had a choice to make on match-ups and they made it. Was it the wrong one? No, probably not.
When you have two forwards of the Canavans’ calibre and two defenders with the stature of Barry McCambridge and Shea Heffron, it’s where the mind naturally goes.
Instead, the Armagh champions with relative rookies. They put Emmet Magee on Darragh and Conan O’Carroll on Ruairi.
There was undoubtedly an element of not wanting to rob Peter to pay Paul in that.
McCambridge was still detailed Peter Harte but even being out in the half-back line allowed him to be the driving force in a good Clann Eireann first half, powering up the middle, drawing bodies, drawing frees.
At one stage he played a beautiful diagonal kick pass off his own weaker left foot that set Dan McCarthy up for a score.
If McCambridge had been tasked with a Canavan, his ability to offer what he did on the ball would have been severely limited.
Clann Eireann’s first-half play was the better of the two, into the teeth of the wind. They played some nice, dinky stuff, with Daniel Magee and Dan McCarthy both lively.
Emmet Magee had some good moments on the ball and it was his diagonal to Daniel Magee that led to a penalty in first-half stoppage time that Conor Turbitt rolled home.
That put Clann Eireann two up but even in the 90 seconds that were left, Errigal were fit to pull them back level at 1-5 to 0-8.
The Lurgan side just didn’t get enough out of Turbitt. He was twice denied by superb diving blocks from Cormac Quinn, who set the tone by winning their first tussle when the ball got stuck between them on the endline and Quinn outmuscled the Allstar full-forward.
Their cause wasn’t helped then by the loss of his Armagh team-mate Tiernan Kelly, sent off for a second booking early in the second half.
His manager Ruairi Lavery argued afterwards that he had been “targeted” by Errigal.
Whether that claim was justified, they couldn’t have complained about either yellow card, one for a high tackle and the other a swipe on Darragh Canavan. The accumulation process was a factor though.
The Errigal crowd were hounding the referee about him, and there grew in the ground an inevitability that one of either Joe McQuillan or Ruairi Lavery were going to have make a decision.
Lavery was naturally reluctant to take one of his best players off. In the end, McQuillan sent him off.
It changed the energy in the game. Errigal’s gander was already up. Things were more physical and tetchy for ten minutes either side of the red card. But when it settled, they weren’t able to shake clear.
Twice they got ahead but were pulled back by fine scores from Dan McCarthy and sub Rioghan Meehan, who profited from Turbitt’s quick-thinking free that played him into space.
But they were very much counter-punching by then, getting drawn deeper and deeper, heavily reliant on the again-excellent Conor McConville to try and get his hands on a ball that would give them a breath.
Shea Heffron scrapped manfully playing as the plus-one in defence, but there’s only so much that could be done.
The winner, when it arrived, was dictated by Peter Harte. Back in the pocket, he switched the ball right, stayed there, got it back and switched it left. Colhoun to Canavan to another Ulster final.
Clann Eireann got one last chance but Emmet Magee’s effort never came in off the outside of the right.
Of their 14 points, nine came from Ruairi Canavan and two each from Darragh and cousin Tommy, who came on at half-time and kicked two frees. Odhran Robinson was their only other scorer.
Yet there’s so much more to it, not least the high-pressing approach that has been visible all throughout this run.
Kilcoo punished Scotstown ruthlessly for the same approach but Errigal are fresher of limb to pull it off.
It is set up to be an almighty final.
Errigal Ciaran seem to be the only team that comes out of Tyrone truly believing that Ulster is their stage.
MATCH STATS
Clann Eireann: E Mulholland; E Magee, M O’Shea; S Heffron; B McCambridge, C O’Carroll, S McCarthy; T Kelly (0-1), C McConville (0-1); J Conlon, D Magee (0-2), R French; R McDonald (0-1), C Turbitt (1-2, 1-0pen, 0-2 frees), D McCarthy (0-2)
Subs: A Kelly for S McCarthy (20), R Meehan (0-1) for McDonald (42), A McConville for French (51), E McKenna for Conlon (57)
Errigal Ciaran: D McAnenly; Ciaran Quinn, Cormac Quinn, A McCrory; N Kelly; P Óg McCartan, T Colhoun, P McGirr; J Oguz, B McDonnell; P Harte, R Canavan (0-9, 0-4f), C McGinley; D Canavan (0-2), O Robinson (0-1)
Subs: M Kavanagh for McGirr (27), T Canavan (0-2 frees) for C McGinley (HT), P Traynor for N Kelly (57)
Referee: J McQuillan (Cavan)
Attendance: 4,894