Battling Clonbur’s second-half fightback just comes up short

Easkey 1-11

Clonbur 1-10

IT’S difficult to find the appropriate superlative to best describe Ryan McKenna’s winning score into a gusting Atlantic wind in the Connacht Club Junior football final on Saturday.

Extra-time seemed inevitable when McKenna picked up the ball in the left-corner forward position. Easkey had run up an 11-point lead by the 35th minute, but Clonbur had showed exemplary fighting spirit when clawing back a sizable half-time deficit in the drawn Galway final with Corofin. That character was again in evidence in Enniscrone. Still, cruelly so in some ways, the final stanza of this match was to be written by an Easkey man.

McKenna was forced to battle for every inch he managed to get off Clonbur full-back Oisin Canney all game. However, when he collected possession in the 63rd minute of this final, McKenna sidestepped Canney and although his movement took his body position closer to the end-line, it gave him enough room to attempt a shot, however tough it was.

Not faced with the option of curling his shot, McKenna almost punt-kicked the ball, and incredibly, it sent the umpire running for the white flag. Mayo referee Liam Devenney blew his final whistle after Enda Joyce’s subsequent kick-out.

Enniscrone is just 13 kilometres from Easkey, the two clubs joined together at U-16 level this year to win League and Championship titles in the ‘B’ grade, and so Saturday’s Connacht final was as close to a home game as it could have possibly have gotten for the Sligo outfit. McKenna’s point had sent the large portion of Easkey fans wild, and when Devenney called for the ball, it was very much joy unconfined.

On the other side of the coin after a finish such as this one, is the obvious devastation for the losing team. Clonbur, winners of a Connacht junior club title in 2011,  were nine behind at half-time, and 1-10 to 0-2 in arrears when hard-running Easkey half-forward Emmet Healy kicked two points early into the second period.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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