Glory for An Ghaeltacht. Glory at their ease. None of the drama or distress of 22 years ago. An utterly comprehensive All-Ireland intermediate final win.<\/p>\n
A club of 181 adult members won\u2019t care that this was an awful spectacle of a decider. They won\u2019t care that they went the first 19 minutes of the second half without a score. They won\u2019t care that they managed just two scores across the 34 minutes of the second half.<\/p>\n
There was more than enough theatre in last week\u2019s extra-time semi-final squeeze against Sallins. There was more than enough in today by simply being the team with more scores on the board at full-time. The how and why were irrelevant to them.<\/p>\n
The bottom line is that they\u2019re the eighth Kerry club to finish this competition as champions.<\/p>\n
A hard watch of an opening half. A throwback to unhappier and uglier football times. Complicity lay at the dressing-room door of both teams.<\/p>\n
Glenullin sat in a rigid, defensive block and showed no rush at all to deviate from this containment-first approach the further and further behind they fell. The further and further they went behind, it became clear that they weren\u2019t able to deviate.<\/p>\n
For An Ghaeltacht\u2019s part, and even though the interval scoreline showed them 0-9 to 0-1 in front, were far too pedestrian in their approach play. Incisions didn\u2019t come quickly. Incisions came after two and three-minute holding patterns outside the Glenullin 45-metre line. One half-time graph had An Ghaeltacht at 89% in the possession stakes.<\/p>\n
Chrissy Dempsey provided Glenullin\u2019s sole first-half point on eight minutes. There were other chances. Se\u00e1n \u00d3 Luing saved an Eoin Bradley goal effort on 13 minutes. There was a Conrad Mullan handpass across the square that came to nought. There were two point attempts short and two more wide.<\/p>\n
In-from-the-start Cathal \u00d3 Beaglaoich fetched a Gaeltacht restart in the second minute, fed Ruaidhr\u00ed \u00d3 Beaglaoich, and the West Kerry men were on their way.<\/p>\n
So many of their white flags thereafter stemmed from the different class of Brian \u00d3 Beaglaoich. An All-Star standing out in an intermediate club final should have come as no surprise.<\/p>\n
He had the assist to Se\u00e1n \u00d3 Cuinn for their second. For their opening two-point free, kicked by Ruaidhr\u00ed, it was Brian who was fouled. He won the break on the following restart. He broke the tackle and offloaded the assist to \u00c9anna \u00d3 Conch\u00fair for a 0-7 to 0-1 lead. And in the last play of the half there he was on his own 20-metre line dispossessing Eunan Boylan.<\/p>\n
His half-back colleagues, P\u00e1draig \u00d3g \u00d3 S\u00e9 and Aodhna \u00d3 Beaglaoich, had their moments of effectiveness too.<\/p>\n
\u00d3 S\u00e9\u2019s kick inside to Se\u00e1n \u00d3 Gairbh\u00ed – a rare kickpass inside – was at the root of Ruaidhr\u00ed\u2019s third on 16 minutes. For their eighth, it was P\u00e1draig \u00d3g with the intercept and Aodhna\u2019s burst drawing the foul.<\/p>\n
The third quarter was home to not a single score. Glenullin registered three wides, kicked a fourth short, and twice were hunted away from the goalmouth as they sought green resurrection.<\/p>\n
Se\u00e1n \u00d3 Gairb\u00ed shoved the gap out to nine – 0-10 to 0-1 – on 49 minutes. Glenullin sub Fearghal Close\u2019s successful kick on 51 minutes brought an end to their excruciating 48-minute wait for a second score.<\/p>\n
Cathal \u00d3 Beaglaoich\u2019s orange flag was the second period’s outstanding score. There weren\u2019t many nominees for the same prize.<\/p>\n
The team who posted 5-8 in the All-Ireland semi-final and 3-15 in the Ulster decider finished with 0-6. The lowest scoring total in an All-Ireland intermediate club final since fellow Derry side Eoghan Rua managed just 0-5 in 2007.<\/p>\n
No contest, just glory and the spoils for An Ghaeltacht.<\/p>\n
\n Scorers for An Ghaeltacht: R \u00d3 Beaglaoich (0-6, tp free, 0-2 free); C \u00d3 Beaglaoich (0-2, tp); S \u00d3 Cuinn, \u00c9 \u00d3 Conch\u00fair, S \u00d3 Gairbh\u00ed, C \u00d3 Corrduibh (0-1 each).<\/p>\n
\n Scorers for Glenullin: N McNicholl (0-2 frees), C Rafferty (0-2 each); C Dempsey, F Close (0-1 each).<\/p>\n
\n AN GHAELTACHT: S \u00d3 L\u00faing; C \u00d3 Murch\u00fa, A Mac Amhlaoibh, JJ Mac Liam; P \u00d3g \u00d3 S\u00e9, B \u00d3 Beaglaoich, A \u00d3 Beaglaoich; A Breathnach, C \u00d3 Beaglaoich; S \u00d3 Cuinn, R \u00d3 Beaglaoich, PJ Mac L\u00e1imh; C \u00d3 Corrduibh, \u00c9 \u00d3 Conch\u00fair, S \u00d3 Gairbh\u00ed.<\/p>\n
\n SUBS: Tom\u00e1s \u00d3 S\u00e9 (DC) for \u00d3 Gairbh\u00ed (54); G \u00d3 Cinn\u00e9ide for \u00d3 Cuinn (55); C \u00d3 Riag\u00e1in for \u00d3 Corrduibh (62).<\/p>\n
\n GLENULLIN: N O\u2019Kane; E Boylan, D O\u2019Kane, E O\u2019Kane; C Rafferty, J O\u2019Kane, D McNicholl; T Bradley, N McNicholl; C Hasson, C Dempsey, C Bradley; C Mullan, E Bradley, R McNicholl.<\/p>\n
\n SUBS: WJ Bradley for Hasson (41); F Close for Mullan (44); C Hasson for F McNicholl, J McNicholl for R McNicholl (both 48); D O\u2019Kane for Dempsey (55).<\/p>\n
\n REFEREE: F Kelly (Longford).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Glory for An Ghaeltacht. Glory at their ease. None of the drama or distress of 22 years ago.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":240361,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4365,6937,61,60,43],"class_list":["post-240360","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-gaelic-football","tag-kerry-gaa","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240360","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=240360"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240360\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/240361"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=240360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=240360"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=240360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}