Charlestown take Mayo crown

Charlestown 0-9 Knockmore 0-6

Veteran players John Casey and David ‘Ginger’ Tiernan played pivotal roles as Charlestown Sarsfields edged out Knockmore in a tension-filled Mayo Club Senior Football Championship final at Castlebar this afternoon.

Goalkeeper Casey produced some crucial saves and hardly put a foot wrong in the wet conditions, while wing forward Tiernan hit an awe-inspiring point, with ten minutes remaining, that spurred Ciaran McBrien’s men on to victory.

Shane McHale at full-back and Trevor Howley in attack both impressed for gutsy Knockmore, for whom Kevin O’Neill crashed a shot against the crossbar in the opening seconds.

Charlestown dominated possession in the first half but could not get the required scores to reflect this, and only mustered one point from play.

However, they still held a 0-4 to 0-3 advantage at half-time with centre-forward Mark Caffrey proving excellent when on the ball.

Knockmore had gone 17 minutes without a score in the first half, until wing forward Andrew Keane drilled a shot over the Charlestown crossbar when a goal looked on.

After an opening 30 minutes dominated by blanket defences, the game began to open up on the resumption and points from Paul Mulligan and Richie Haran stretched Charlestown’s lead to three points.

Two placed balls from big full-forward O’Neill got Knockmore back in touch before a terrific point from wing back Craig Reape tied up the game at 0-6 apiece, with 19 minutes to go.

Wanting to push on, Knockmore were clearly missing injured forwards Aidan Kilcoyne and Damien Munnelly and it was Charlestown who produced a strong final quarter in their third Mayo final in as many years - they lost to Ballina in 2007 and Ballaghaderreen last year.

With the rain pelting down, man-of-the-match Tiernan rose to the occasion when he launched a brilliant point over from wide out on the left. Caffrey followed suit from closer in and Mulligan’s second point from play was the clincher at 0-9 to 0-6.

All that was left was for Charlestown captain Aidan Higgins to collect the Moclair Cup, confirming the Sarsfields side’s third county title win and their first since 2001.