Cornafean 1-16
Ballymachugh 0-11

by Shane Corrigan
at Kingspan Breffni Park

A classy Cornafean display sunk Ballymachugh this afternoon and delivered a first junior championship title to the club in 16 years.

Laurence Brady's charges dominated this decider once Adrian McCaffrey palmed home the game's only goal after nine minutes, with their talisman Barry Doyle registering a match-winning 0-10 tally to help banish the ghosts from last year's defeat to Templeport on the same stage.

McCaffrey's strike and Doyle's points had the Reds in a commanding position at half-time, going in 1-10 to 0-5 ahead, and were never going to let this one slip after Doyle and Andrew Smith slotted over the opening two scores of the second-half.

Ballymachugh relied on frees from centre-forward Mark Kiernan (0-6) for more than half their scores over the hour and couldn't come up with the goals they needed late on to avoid a second final defeat in three years in this competition.

The losers in this one had looked the better outfit in the very early stages, sending over two frees from Kiernan to cancel out Doyle's opener before steering a goal chance just wide in the eighth minute.

Brady's men punished them severely for that missed opportunity in the very next attack, which saw midfielder Jack Wharton dropping his point effort from the left short and McCaffrey sneak in to send the ball into Darragh Goldrick's net at the second attempt.

Points from Andrew Smith and Doyle (free) ushered the winners into a four-point lead by the 12th minute, but the Hughs made a decent recovery via points from inside men Killian Smith and Richie Fitzsimons.

The second quarter belonged to Cornafean however, as Wharton and Niall Sheridan gained a major foothold around the centre, which afforded steady supply to Doyle and McCaffrey up front.

McCaffrey put a goal between the sides in the 16th minute and the next four points came from the trusty boot of Doyle (two of them frees) and all of a sudden the Reds were 1-8 to 0-4 in front with the writing seemingly on the wall.

Operating in a sweeper's role, Liam Duignan was able to get on the end of slick move from victors and widen the margin to eight.

That difference would remain at the interval, as Kiernan ended a 15-minute scoring drought for his side with a coolly stroked free which erased their opponents' seventh point in-a-row from that man Doyle.

Similar to the decider of two years ago, Stephen Baxter's men were left with a colossal task on their hands to try and turn the game around in the second-half and would need a highly profitable third quarter in order to do so.

Instead it was their opponents that were doing the damage early on in the resumption, with Doyle's fifth free of the afternoon being backed up by centre-forward Smith rocketing over his second and third points to outweigh Killian Smith's effort down the far end.

Cornafean lost instrumental centre-back Mark Johnson on a black card soon after but any notion of them losing this game from here on out was far-fetched, as the goal routes which Ballymachugh looked for were repeatedly blocked by a wall of red. Winning captain Dan Wharton led brilliantly by example in the number three jersey, while James Cullen and Jason Miney continually cut off the Hughs' green flag options.

The trailers instead settled for two Kiernan frees (one a 45) followed by a Fitzsimons single to keep them with an outside chance towards the finish prior to Andrew Wharton getting himself on the score-sheet for a nine-point difference.

Doyle nearly capped off his 'Man of the Match' display with a late goal but was made settle for a 10th point instead, as Cavan's most successful club soared to its first Sean Leddy Cup triumph since 2000.

Cornafean: Andrew Johnson; James Cullen, Dan Wharton, Jason Miney; Pauric Woods, Mark Johnson, Conor Sheridan; Jack Wharton, Niall Sheridan; Andrew Wharton (0-1), Andrew Smith (0-3), Cormac Geoghegan; Barry Doyle (0-10, 6f), Liam Duignan (0-1), Adrian McCaffrey (1-1). Subs: Ciaran Duignan for M Johnson (43mins, b/c), Paul Brady for D Wharton (57), Pauric Tully for A Smith (60, b/c), Cathal Sheridan for C Geoghegan (60), Niall Corcoran for J Cullen (60).

Ballymachugh: Darragh Goldrick; Gary Kelly, Christopher Rooney, Jamie Coyle; Diarmuid O'Reilly, Anthony Baxter, Dillion Kiernan; James Kiernan, James Smith; James H Fitzsimons, Mark Kiernan (0-6, 5f, 1 45), Barry Kiernan; Alan Donohoe, Richie Fitzsimons (0-3, 1f), Killian Smith (0-2). Subs: Darragh Kiernan for J H Fitzsimons (30mins), Finbar Sheridan for A Donohoe (HT), Padraig Galligan for K Smith (41), Stephen Harten for B Kiernan (51),

Ref: Margaret Farrelly (Laragh United)

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