Milltown pull it out of the fire with stunning late recovery

Killererin 3-13

Milltown 4-10

FOUR minutes into injury time, Killererin were 3-13 to 2-7 up. While they had retreated almost in perfect unison into their own half in the midst of Milltown’s full-court press, nobody in Tuam Stadium could have predicted the sequence of events that were about to unfold before our eyes.

The next six minutes of added time brought with them a torrent of barely believable action, all going one in floods towards the Town End goal. When Damian Brennan followed up on points from Mark Hehir and Keith Mannion, with a daisy-cutter of a shot that crept past James Keeley in the Killererin goal, Milltown were four behind, and still there was time.

Michael Martin then took his personal tally for the evening to 1-4 after 66 minutes, and despite being reduced to 14 men with Ciarán Blake’s dismissal for a black card which followed his earlier yellow, incredibly there was a fourth goal in Milltown prior to Richard McNicholas’ final whistle.

A wise head is often better than a young one in these instances, and it was Brennan and James Kavanagh, who set up Darren Mullahy for the levelling score. Mullahy rolled a shot into the corner of the net, perhaps fitting that a man who has represented his club with such esteem throughout his career, should score a goal as dramatic and important as this one.

Killererin did panic, understandable in some ways for what is a relatively young team. What’s equally as galling for manager Jimmy Murphy and trainer Tommie Joyce, is that they would have been full value for that win, because they played some scintillating football in the first half, scoring 3-6 and cobbling together 15 scoring chances.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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