Loughmore-Castleiney 0-9 Cahir 2-2
Tipperary’s senior club football championship was finally completed on St Stephen’s Day, with Loughmore-Castleiney crowned champions for a 13th time.
The 2013 dual winners retained their football title with a hard-fought one-point victory over Cahir, as 1,710 spectators braved the elements to watch an entertaining replay at Leahy Park, Cashel.
Loughmore-Castleiney failed to score in the second half but still did enough to claim the silverware as Cahir battled in vain for an elusive equalising score.
Cahir found themselves 0-1 to 0-9 behind in the first half but Paddy O’Flaherty’s injury-time goal ignited their challenge. Dean Lonergan scored 1-1 in the second half for Cahir but Loughmore clung on as Noel McGrath was black-carded in stoppage time, taking one for the team to haul down an advancing Cahir attacker.
McGrath’s cousin Liam was also black carded in the first half as Cahir also lost Padraig Whelan and Conor Casey to black cards in a hard-hitting affair.
Cahir will look back on what might have been as Robbie Costigan, a former Tipperary senior team captain, was ruled out through injury. Costigan was only release from hospital on Christmas Eve after suffering a broken rib and punctured lung in last Sunday’s drawn game.
And Cahir were aggrieved in the 35th minute when O’Flaherty looked to have kicked a point but the effort was waved wide.
“I know the boys approached the umpire and linesman,” said Cahir boss and newly-appointed Waterford supremo Tom McGlinchey. “The small things will always come back to haunt us. Maybe extra time would have been nice to see but Loughmore were deserved winners. They scored more than us.”
In a game of such small margins, it was a gracious assessment from McGlinchey in the circumstances.
His opposite number Declan Laffan reflected: “When I saw it first, I thought it was wide.
“Then I looked back a second time and I wasn’t sure. One thing I always think with a dubious point like that, if the player doesn’t start arguing, it’s generally wide. And he (O’Flaherty) didn’t argue.”
Loughmore’s winning captain was David Kennedy, centre back on the Tipperary team that won the All-Ireland SHC title in 2001.
And the veteran 38-year-old insisted: “It’s great to see Tipperary going well because there’s definitely room for both codes in the county with the population that we have and the resources we have and the interest we have in the GAA.
"There's no reason why we can't be on a par with the likes of Cork, Dublin and Galway."
LOUGHMORE-CASTLEINEY: D Brennan; J Meagher, W Eviston, T McGrath; T King, C McGrath, J Ryan; N McGrath (0-2), D Kennedy; A McGrath, C Hennessy, L Treacy (0-2f); L McGrath, E Sweeney (0-1), J McGrath (0-4, 2f). Subs: Eamonn Connolly for L McGrath (b/c 9), D Bourke for Treacy (43), J Hennessy for N McGrath (b/c 60+1)
CAHIR: B Enright; M O'Connor, G Halley, C Casey; S O'Connor, A Casey, E Donaghy; E Kendrick, L Casey; B Hickey, P O'Flaherty (1-0), S Murphy; P Whelan, D Lonergan (1-2, 0-1f), J McGrath. Subs: D Tarrant for Whelan (b/c 14), T O'Gorman for S O'Connor (53), N McKenna for C Casey (b/c 56).
Referee: Sean Lonergan.
