Midleton strike late to overcome Glen Rovers and book semi-final place
SEMI-FINAL BOOKED: Conor McCarthy and Micheal Mullins, Glen Rovers, Cormac Beausang, Midleton. Picture: Jim Coughlan.
Midleton struck late and struck fatally. Their timing was perfection. A third consecutive county semi-final punched.
Midleton led the opening half of this tetchy quarter-final contest on three occasions. The first of those was on 14 minutes and the last on 24 minutes. They didn’t lead again until the fourth minute of second-half stoppages. They came with a powerful late surge. So powerful that it both dwarfed and usurped the Glen’s own surge late in the first half and the five-point gap created from such.
Midleton firing the final three scores is far from the full picture. A far more rounded picture is Midleton outgunning their city opponents by 1-9 to 0-3 from the 40th minute onwards.
On 39 minutes, Luke Horgan landed a boomer from out the field. The Glen ahead by seven. 2-14 to 1-10. The largest gap of the evening. Midleton’s yet-to-get-going challenge was drowning under the light rain that fell from long before throw-in.
The score that revived and revitalised them arrived on 42 minutes. Sub Luke O’Farrell was a key kitchen worker in its cooking up. All Midleton subs, in fact, busied themselves upon their introduction. Tommy O’Connell razored a sharp pass to Cormac Beausang. The full-forward applied a slick finish for his and Midleton’s second green flag.
Eoin O’Leary issued an almost instant white flag response for Tomás Mulcahy’s side. It proved their sole white flag between the 39th and 58th minute. The ball inside wasn’t the first-half magnet it had been. Their middle third was losing control to Tommy O’Connell, Mikey Finn, and full-back Eoin Moloney who’d been shoved out from his starting station on Patrick Horgan after picking up a first-half yellow card.
Killian McDermott and a Lehane hat-trick of points - O’Connell and Finn winning the two frees thrown over by the Magpies centre-forward - brought parity four minutes from the hour. They hadn’t been level in over half an hour.
Of the many subdued Glen forwards by this juncture, it was Simon Kennefick who stood out from the silence to snipe a pair of points in less than 30 seconds to shove the Glen within reach of a first semi-final appearance in four years. In the eight minutes following Kennefick’s pair, they couldn’t find another score.
Luke O’Farrell halved the deficit. Lehane, following another foul on Finn, wiped it out in the third minute of injury-time. O’Farrell for the lead, his second. What a bench contribution from the 35-year-old. Fellow sub David Cremin drew the foul that brought Lehane’s tally to double digits and doubled Midleton’s lead to two.
Two minutes past the allotted four, a foul on Glen sub Jake Brosnan offered Patrick Horgan an opportunity to assume hero status above what he already holds in the Glen. His 20-metre free was not cleanly struck, was somewhat comfortably saved.
Midleton have not been bettered in their last seven quarter-final appearances. Not since 2012 have they fallen at this stage of the road.
For a game that was level on five occasions across the opening half, the last of which came on 24 minutes, a five-point difference at the break spoke to the strength of the Glen’s galloping finish to the first half hour.
1-3 without reply. A one-point deficit transformed into a five-point lead. Yet another Patrick Horgan placed-ball masterclass. 2-7 out of the Glen’s half-time 2-10 total belonged to him.
It was Hoggie himself who was fouled for the converted free that represented the opening score of their late-in-the-half burst. It wasn’t the score, mind, that lit the touchpaper for that burst. That score came three minutes later. Dean Brosnan was fouled late by Cormac Walsh after the former had lorried in his delivery. The free, 25 metres from goal, was drilled to the net by the Glen No.14.
Another turning point presented itself in the ensuing play. Midleton were awarded a free out for Horgan overcarrying. Midleton’s over-zealousness in celebrating the free saw it downgraded to a throw-in. They lost the throw-in, Micheál Mullins pointing.
Mullins’ second, 10 seconds upon the restart, shoved their advantage out to 2-11 to 1-8. It would grow another point more. They faded thereafter, both in energy and creativity. Midleton roared late. They still have a voice and a say in this championship.
: C Lehane (0-10, 0-8 frees); C Beausang (2-1); K McDermott (0-3); R O’Regan, L O’Farrell (0-2 each); M Finn (0-1).
: P Horgan (2-9, 1-6 frees); S Kennefick (0-3); M Mullins, E O’Leary (0-2 each); L Horgan (0-1 each).
: B Saunderson; C Smyth, E Moloney, T O’Leary Hayes; L Dineen, T O’Connell, R O’Regan; S O’Meara, M Finn; C Walsh, C Lehane, K McDermott; P White, C Beausang, A Quirke.
L O’Farrell for Quirke, D Cremin for Walsh (both 40 mins); E McGrath for O’Meara (49); P Connaughton for White (51); S O’Sullivan for C Smyth (57).
: C Hickey; C McCarthy, A Lynch, L Coughlan; B Moylan, E Downey, R Downey; A O’Donovan, M Mullins; L Horgan, D Brosnan, R Dunne; S Kennefick, P Horgan, E O’Leary.
J Brosnan for O’Donovan, L Quilligan for Dunne (both 50); S Lynam for D Brosnan (57).
REFEREE: W King.
