Garrycastle 0-11
Mullingar Sharmocks 1-8

Garrycastle's dream of a three-in-a-row of Flanagan Cup successes lives on after James Dolan scored an equalising point in injury-time to deny Mullingar Shamrocks in a thrilling Westmeath SFC final at Cusack Park this afternoon.

Ray Smyth's young Shamrocks side - who were bidding to bring a first title to Mullingar in 11 years - looked set to cause a major upset when former county defender Donal O'Donoghue fisted over the second of two second half points to edge them in front with time almost up. But the champions mounted one last attack which yielded a '45. Man of the match Dessie Dolan - who accounted for 0-8 of the Garrycastle tally - miss-hit his kick, but his blushes were spared when his cousin James reacted quickest and sent the ball straight between the posts to tie the game.

With the All-Ireland ladies intermediate final replay between Westmeath and Cavan taking place in Croke Park next Sunday and the SHC decider between Clonkill and Castletown-Geoghegan pencilled in for the following Sunday, the replay won't take place until Sunday, October 23.

Just as he had done in last year's county final clash of the same two teams, Lorcan Smyth rifled home an early goal for Shamrocks, but with Dessie Dolan and Paddy Mulvihill finding their range, Garrycastle battled back to go into the break on level terms, 0-6 to 1-3.

Things looked to be going according to script when the Athlone side held Shamrocks scoreless in the third quarter while opening up a two-point lead. But the underdogs dug in and twice took the lead before county under 21 and senior player Dolan came to Garrycastle's rescue with the last kick of the game.

There is a possibility that Garrycastle's manager Anthony Cunningham could be appointed as Galway's new senior hurling boss before the replay takes place, so an interesting couple of weeks await. Tweet

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