Oughterard ace is the hero of thrilling intermediate final replay

Oughterard 0-19

Mícheál Breathnach 1-16

Oughterard win 5-4 on penalties AET

WHEN it comes to Hollywood movies, sequels rarely match audience expectations created by the original. Not so the Galway intermediate football championship final replay.

The draw a fortnight ago was a thriller, a late equalising free from Oughterard’s Matthew Tierney giving us all another day out. And yet it wasn’t a patch on the second helpings served up by two unbelievably dedicated teams at Pearse Stadium last Saturday.

You name it, this game had it . . . a blockbuster that will live long in the memory. No wonder, then, at the end of extra-time, just before a penalty shootout was used to separate them, the stadium announcer implored the crowd to applaud both teams’ efforts over the 80-plus minutes.

Once again it was Matthew Tierney, who stole the show. Not once, not twice, but three times the 20-year-old talented forward showed nerves of steel to save Oughterard with crucial kicks. Like the last gasp levelling free in the drawn game, they were pressure kicks but he refused to buckle.

It was the footballing equivalent of a fire-fighter quenching two separate raging infernos, before going on to save a family from the flames: Tierney converted one free in injury time of normal time to force extra time, and one free in extra time to force penalties, and then literally won the game with the last kick – a penalty in sudden death after 80-plus minutes of action couldn’t separate them.

What more could he do? Of course, he had help, and this wasn’t a one-man show – far from it – but Tierney’s exploits were heroic, and his eight points’ tally was instrumental to Oughterard capturing silverware at adult level for the first time in almost two decades.

It’s a pity there had to be a winner on the day, and losing on a penalty shootout in sudden death is possibly the cruellest way of all to bow out. It’s the second year in a row CLG Mícheál Breathnach have lost a county intermediate final replay – the only consolation is that this year both finalists are promoted to senior. It should help to ease the pain. Maybe.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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