Dunboyne rise and follow Charlie to scrape late draw

St Peter’s Dunboyne 1-14 Rathkenny 1-14

Charlie Gallagher’s booming free two minutes into stoppage time rescued a draw for Dunboyne at the end of this exciting Fairyhouse Steel SFC encounter at Dunsany on Thursday evening.

The towering teenager was his side’s principal source of scores throughout the contest, but, having burst into a 1-04 to 0-01 early on, the greatest talking point must surely be the fact that the black and ambers were never able to shake off their typically obdurae opponents.

The reason for that? Primarily two words: Donal Keogan. That’s the thing about top class operators – you may know exactly what they are going to do, but, stopping or even impeding them from doing so is an  entirely diffferent matter.

Thus, the Doc’s timeless ability to hoover up broken ball, bob and weave through opponents and either construct scores for others or take them himself caused Dunboyne’s rearguard no end of problems.

To the extent that, even after Mark Furlong’s ‘major’ left David Gallagher’s side 1-04 to 0-01 clear, it was Joey Farrelly’s team who flipped the script completely on its head.

Actually going further than Dunboyne had in their dominant spell, in that the black and red hit 1-5 on the spin. The points coming from Keogan, Keith Curtis and Robbie Garry before Christy Meade used all his experience to wriggle his way out of a tight corner. Thereby instigating a move which culminated in Luke Kealy latching onto a long ball and diverting it beyond Colin McCabe. Giving the 2023 Intermediate winners a deserved 1-06 to 1-04 interval advantage.

Quickfire scores from Ciaran McCormack and John Harkin got Dunboyne back to parity, but, again, the Stackallen men rallied. Scores from Joey and Keith Curtis and James O’Hare putting them 1-09 to 1-06 clear.

That jolt seemed to spark the pre match favourites into life as they notched six of tbe next seven points. Two Charlie Gallagher two pointers and single efforts from Sean Delaney left matters turned around again – Dunboyne 1-12, Rathkenny 1-10.

Again, the revels refused to go quietly and a pair of Keith Curtis two point frees appeared to have left their opponents too close to the bacon slicer to be at the point of rescue.

However, it transpired to be a case of cometh the hour, cometh the young man. As, on his senior championship debut, Charlie Gallagher showed composure and confidence with belied his scant experience at this level to drive over a long range double which spared a few blushes. But little more than that.

With neighbours Kilbride and current defending Keegan Cup holders Summerhill coming down the tracks, nothing short of seismic improvement will suffice if Dunboyne are to prolong their season.

St Peter’s – C. McCabe; J. Hayes, S. Lavin, C. O’Dwyer; C. Smith, L. Byrne, C. McCormack (0-1); S. McEntee, C. Gallagher (0-8, 3x2PT); M. Furlong (1-0), M. Murphy, J. Harkin (0-1); R. McCarthy,  S. Delaney (0-3), J. Gleeson (0-1).

Subs – C. Tobin for Smith, F. Watters for McEntee, A. Howlin for Furlong, Furlong for Watters.

Referee – Patrick Coyle (Curraha)

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