Nemo kill off Barrs double dream in style despite late drama 

It's 1993 all over again despite Barrs somehow getting within a goal at the death as Nemo toast a 23rd Cork crown in their 100th year 

SWEET NO.23: Nemo Rangers captain Luke Connolly lifting the cup after the Cork County Senior Club Football Championship Final match between Nemo Rangers and St Finbarr's at Páirc Ui Chaoimh in Cork. Pic: Eóin Noonan/Sportsfile

Nemo Rangers 1-16 St Finbarr’s 2-9

Call it 1993 all over again. Nemo didn’t just stop a Barrs double, they killed it stone dead.

That this Cork football final finished in a blaze of nervous excitement as the Barrs chased an equalising goal was a wonder.

Ten minutes into the second half, and following a wondrous Luke Connolly skyscraper, Nemo led 1-13 to 0-5. A difference of 11 points. Nobody - nobody - had seen this coming.

Nemo had outworked their opponents. They’d outthought their opponents - inside and outside the whitewash.

And then, belatedly, the Barrs decided they’d try and make a go of retraining their county title. It began with a Brian Hayes goal. Steven Sherlock added a free. The gap back to seven. The door ajar.

Nemo’s Kevin O’Donovan, who did a fine marshalling job on Steven Sherlock and held the Barrs talisman to a point from play, and Luke Connolly split the posts in relatively quick succession in an attempt to close the door back shut on their southside rivals. That Connolly point on 48 minutes was Nemo’s last score until the fourth minute of second-half stoppages.

In between, the Barrs kicked 1-3 without reply - Billy Hennessy with the goal on 51 minutes - to narrow the deficit to a goal, 1-15 to 2-9.

There was still three minutes of regulation time remaining. And four of stoppages after that. But no closer could Togher get. And neither did they create any half-decent goal chance.

The Barrs, as had been the case throughout the first half, were too slow in their build up play. Creativity and sharpness was sorely lacking from their approach work.

Nemo sub Kieran O’Sullivan settled the verdict in injury-time, his insurance point coming from a pickpocket of the Barrs’ Eoin McGreevey. There had been many of those in the preceding 64 minutes.

It was a Nemo-bossed first half. Their 0-9 to 0-4 lead they were full value for. Their work-rate was ferocious, relentless. Countless were the examples of blue shirts being wrapped up in black like oil covering water.

Enda Dennehy was one of the first Barrs players to find himself hemmed in by four Nemo players. And while this turnover didn’t directly lead to a Nemo point, the next such instance of a Barrs player being bullied out of possession did.

Dennehy was again encircled and stripped. The play ended with Conor Horgan firing over his second and Nemo’s fifth in-a-row to move the men from Trabeg 0-7 to 0-3 in front on 17 minutes.

Shortly after arrived a Steven Sherlock free to reduce the gap to three. Shortly after that arrived the opening period’s key moment. A double Barrs goal chance. Goalkeeper Micheál Aodh Martin saved point-blank from Colin Lyons. He then bettered himself by denying Sherlock. The latter missed the resulting ‘45.

What it all meant was that instead of being level, or at worst two in arrears, the 2021 champions mined absolutely nothing at all from the attack.

Nemo went promptly down the field and won a free, which Luke converted. They could have poured further salt on those missed Barrs goal chances when Luke played Mark Cronin in the clear. John Kerins to the rescue, the goalkeeper repelling the shot.

The half finished with yet another Barrs player losing possession and yet another Connolly point (free).

They pulled further clear on 34 minutes. A stray John Kerins restart was collected by Conor Horgan who lobbed the backpedaling ‘keeper.

The game ended with Nemo celebrating a 23rd county title in the 100th year of their existence and 50 years after their maiden Cork title. Fitting, and then some.

Scorers for Nemo Rangers: L Connolly (0-8, 0-5 frees); C Horgan (1-3); R Dalton (0-2); K O’Donovan, B O’Driscollm K O’Sullivan (0-1 each).

Scorers for St Finbarr’s: S Sherlock (0-6, 0-1 free); B Hayes, B Hennessy (1-0 each); B O’Connor, E McGreevey, I Maguire (0-1 each).

Nemo Rangers: MA Martin; K O’Donovan, K Fulignati, K Histon; C McCartan, B Murphy, S Cronin; B Cripps, A O’Donovan; C Horgan, R Dalton, J Horgan; M Cronin, B O’Driscoll, L Connolly.

Subs: P Kerrigan for Dalton (47); L Horgan for J Horgan C Dalton for C Horgan (both 54); K O’Sullivan for Fulignati (56); C O’Donovan for Cripps (60).

St Finbarr’s: J Kerins; A O’Connor, S Ryan, B Hennessy; C Lyons, J Burns, C Scully; I Maguire, E Comyns; E McGreevey, B Hayes, E Dennehy; C Myers Murray, E Twomey, S Sherlock.

Subs: B O’Connor for Twomey (HT); D Quinn for Comyns (32); C Dennehy for Myers Murray (44); A Lyne for Dennehy (55).

Referee: A Long (Argideen Rangers) ENDS --