Ulster Senior Club Championship Final replay: Donaghmoyne (Monaghan) 2-10 Bredagh (Down) 1-5
DONAGHMOYNE clinched their 13th Ulster senior club title making no mistake second time around against Bredagh in Crossmaglen yesterday afternoon.
The reigning champions dominated from start to finish and at half-time they led 1-6 to 1-1, Player of the Match Louise Kerley, in particular, in fine form and she finished with 1-5 for the Monaghan side.
Bredagh will be disappointed to have fallen so short this time, especially after they could have won seven days earlier, but that’s Donaghmoyne, they will not falter the second time. This was the third final replay the Monaghan side have been in and it’s the third one they have won impressively. All over the field they won the battles they had to, to stop Bredagh from winning their first Ulster title. Bredagh asked serious questions of the champions last week and although they might not have had all the answers in Carrickmore last Sunday, they certainly had them this time around.
The first two scores of the game were goals, Cathriona McConnell opening Donaghmoyne’s account with just over a minute and a half on the clock but almost immediately Bredagh had that cancelled out when captain Clare Timoney fired home from the penalty spot - her second in the provincial competition - to level matters at 1-0 each.
However, Donaghmoyne reeled off the next four points to lead 1-4 to 1-0 at the water break, full forward Louise Kerley with all four of those, the first two from play and the others from frees. They could have had another couple of goals on the scoreboard too only for the crossbar to deny Cora Courtney while Kerley missed from the penalty spot as she dragged her effort to the left and wide.
Bredagh pulled a point back in the 20th minute but Donaghmoyne stretched out their lead to five with Lauren Garland and McConnell on target to give them that 1-6 to 1-1 half-time lead.
Kerley put the game out of reach four minutes after the resumption when she fired home from close range as Bredagh struggled to get out of their half.
Laoise Duffy did raise the white flag for the Down champions but Donaghmoyne’s reply again was emphatic, despite going down to 14 players when Hazel Kingham was sin binned, as they hit four unanswered points, Kerley with a free, Aoife Burns, McConnell (free) and Amy Garland to move them 2-10 to 1-2 ahead with 10 minutes to play.
That happened to be their last score of the game and credit to Bredagh, they never gave up, and were rewarded with three in-a-row from Eva Hicks (free), Anna McKee and Timoney (free), but this was to be Donaghmoyne’s day.
Donaghmoyne captain Amanda Casey was full of praise for her team-mates as they put on the performance they knew they needed.
“We are so delighted, I can’t believe it’s over and we have the trophy back. We knew it was going to be an absolute dog fight and we knew how brilliant Bredagh were and we knew it was going to take a much better performance than last week,” said Casey.
“I’m so proud of all the girls. We really dug deep and put in a massive performance today and thankfully came away with the win.
“We played really well and the girls worked so hard and credit to everybody, just absolutely delighted with the win and we’ll celebrate tonight and look forward to a few days off training and then back to the All-Ireland semi-final in January. It’s just brilliant and I’m so proud of them."
