McEntee knew Cross would face tough battle

The pity of it is that all the headlines today should have been shouting out the fact Oisin McConville and Paul Hearty claimed their 10th Ulster Club titles in Armagh yesterday.

Of course, the allegations of racism which subsequently blighted this fixture ensured that this was anything but the perfect 10 but so, too, did Kilcoo who transformed a cakewalk into a contest from the most unpromising of scenarios. Cross manager Tony McEntee had predicted that the Down champions would compete for 60 minutes come what may, and he was proven right.

“Yeah, but I didn’t think that we would only play for 15 minutes,” he added yesterday evening. “In the first half, we played for 15 minutes. Then we stopped completely. The last 15 minutes of the first-half, we were showboating and messing and throwing the ball around and not being clinical up front.”