Rathnew 3-6
St. Patrick's 0-9
Goals proved crucial as Rathnew beat St. Patrick's to secure a hat-trick of Wicklow SFC titles in Aughrim.
The Wicklow town outfit had beaten 'The Village' in the group stage, but the champions turned the tables when it mattered. They signalled their intent by opening up an early 1-1 to 0-0 lead thanks to an Eddie Doyle point inside the first 30 seconds and a Leighton Glynn penalty.
The accurate free-taking of Brian Coen meant that St. Pat's only trailed by the minimum, 0-4 to 1-2, at the break, but the game started to slip away from them after Nicky Mernagh pounced for Rathnew's second goal 10 minutes into the second half.
Mernagh raised his second green flag in the 58th minute to make it 3-6 to 0-6 before Tommy Kelly and Dean Healy had late consolation points for the town side.
Rathnew - P Dignam; P Merrigan, D Power, J Snell; W Kavanagh, R O'Brien, E Glynn; A Merriman, J Stafford (0-1); E Doyle (0-4, 3f), L Glynn (1-1, 1-0pen), T Smyth; N Mernagh (2-0), J Merrigan, S Byrne. Subs: G Merrigan for T Smyth, J Manley for E Glynn, J Byrne for S Byrne, P Ellis for J Merrigan.
St. Patrick's - C Byrne; P Higgins, D McEvoy, C Doyle; N Earls, N Donnelly, W Doyle; D Healy (0-1), P McWalter; P Earls, T Kelly (0-5, 4f), R Murphy (0-1); D O'Sullivan, E Wolfe, B Coen (0-2f). Subs: J Kavanagh for W Doyle, S Duffy for B Coen, S Murley for D McEvoy, C Ffrench for P Earls, J Delahunt for E Wolfe.
Referee - K Kenny.
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