Hatton miss lets Dunshaughlin off the hook
The sides were level for the third time with two minutes to go when Dunshaughlin’s Trevor Dowd sent over his second free of the afternoon before three defensive mistakes – the last a pick-up off the ground – allowedBrian Ennis respond in kind.
Any annoyance the Dunshaughlin rearguard had concerning their largesse was tempered when Summerhill centre-back Richie Hatton sent a potential winner spiralling wide.
And so they both live to fight another day. Sunday week, to be exact, which isn’t the worst scenario given the fact that the eventual champions will have to wait until November 13 to face their Dublin counterparts.
“I’d rather we’d just won the Keegan Cup,” said Dunshaughlin manager Gary Farrelly.
“There were a couple of decisions could have gone either way at the end but a draw was a fair result.”
Farrelly’s side came to Navan as underdogs which wasn’t anything new. Rated 16/1 contenders at the championship’s dawn, they possessed more of the impressive individual performers on the day.
Chief among them was Caoimhín King, the only big-name inter-county player on either side. He swept impressively from centre-back while Cathal O’Dwyer and Dowd saw to matters further upfield.
Summerhill had their own chiefs. Willie Ryan gave a classic corner-back’s display, Conor Gillespie toiled manfully in the middle while Brian Ennis shrugged off some wayward shots to convert five frees.
Summerhill, looking to make up for a crushing defeat to Navan O’Mahony’s at this juncture three years ago, started the better with Gillespie’s first point after 11 minutes handing them a 0-4 to 0-1 lead.
Dunshaughlin’s response was an emphatic second quarter that saw them reach the interval in front, 0-6 to 0-5.
After the break King and his goalkeeper Ronan Gogan combined to register the day’s key event when the pair denied Brian Ennis’s initial shot and David Larkin’s rebound which skidded wide off the post.
The slaps King received on the back from his team-mates were as hard as anything he received or dished out throughout the 60-plus minutes and the intervention was all the more seminal given it was the only goal chance fashioned.
Truth be told, it wasn’t the greatest of spectacles but an honest battle finally began to increase in intensity as the final whistle approached and the teams continued to cling to each other.
They both deserve their second shot.
Scorers for Dunshaughlin: C O’Dwyer 0-3, T Dowd (2fs), C Deveraux 0-2 each, D Kealy, F Toolan, N Murphy 0-1 each.
Scorers for Summerhill: B Ennis 0-5fs, C Gillespie 0-2, D Larkin, P Rispin, A Kenny 0-1 each.
DUNSHAUGHLIN: R Gogan; A Doyle, K McTigue, M Ahern; A Johnson, C King, D Kealy; J Crimmins, R Maloney; F Toolan, T Dowd, C Deveraux; T Johnson, N Murphy, C O’Dwyer.
Subs: T Kealy for Murphy (48), N Kelly for Johnson (52), M Reilly for Toolan (56), T O’Duishlaine for Deveraux (60).
SUMMERHILL: T McDonnell; D Dalton, C Young, W Ryan; S Husband, R Hatton, M Gorman; M Byrne, C Gillespie; D Larkin, B Ennis, M Kennedy; P Rispin, S Kennedy, A Kenny.
Subs: B Lyons for Kennedy (38), P Larkin for Rispin (51), C Malone for Husband (55).
Referee: C Reilly.
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