Rice College Westport win first Tony O'Neill Cup final in dramatic fashion
BRACE: Rian Durkan of Rice College celebrates after scoring the first of his side's two goals in the Tony O'Neill Cup final against Blackrock College. Pic: Matt Browne/Sportsfile
75 minutes of setting the stage was followed by 45 minutes of incredible drama in Athlone this afternoon, and when all was said and done, Rice College were Tony O’Neill Cup champions for the first time in their history.
If they win another ten titles between now and 2040, they’ll struggle to match this level of drama and excitement along the way.
Backboned by the majority of the team that lost last year’s junior (Tom Ticher) cup final at this same venue, it looked for the opening 45 minutes as if Blackrock College’s superior physicality and power might give them the edge, even though that period passed by without either goalkeeper being seriously tested.
The Westport side posed much more of a threat after the interval when they tried to work the ball into attacking areas much more methodically rather than looking to simply hit lone striker Jack O’Malley from 20 yards away or more, but Blackrock also found it easier to break through, with Jack Kelly testing Michael McDonnell from close range in the first minute.
Harry Weir and Geordy Lavin down the left hand side showed outstanding craft and ingenuity to open up the Rice defence on a couple of occasions, but the breakthrough never came, and instead it was Rían Durkan who broke the deadlock, coolly rolling the ball to the net after Jack O’Malley’s composure wrong-footed the Blackrock defence.
That only served as the cue for Blackrock to step up the pressure, and when Cormac Sheahan headed the equaliser from Conor O’Neill’s corner, the south Dublin side and 2003 national champions had all the momentum.
Nothing came of it however, meaning that the contest moved to extra-time, when Durkan again gave Rice the lead when he slipped a low shot inside the near post with four minutes of time remaining.
Those four minutes were as frantic as you’d imagine, with Rice College missing a chance to score while Ronan Ffrench was caught upfield, and that looked fatal when Lavin curled a free around the wall and into the bottom corner with the last kick.
Penalties began, the drama continued. Evan Durkan set the tone by opening with a Panenka chip, McDonnell’s save on Lavin looked to give Rice College the upper hand, only for two saves from Ffrench to leave Peter Walsh with a kick to win it.
A thunderous strike off the bottom of the crossbar, bouncing a yard out from the goal-line, showed the wafer-thin margin between victory and defeat, all the more when captain Alex Halpin hit the top corner with the first sudden death kick and Jack Luff’s pulled effort wide of the post confirmed the Mayo school’s win.
M McDonnell; E Moran (T McGeough FT), M Staunton, C McGing, S Casey; Jamie O’Malley (D Reynolds 56), K Conway (C Cannon 71, S Popov 104); A Halpin, E Durkan, R Durkan; Jack O’Malley.
R Ffrench; D Noonan (R Dowling 84), J Luff, C Sheahan, H Weir; S Mooney, C O’Neill; C Hearty (J Gleeson Halpin 65), P Walsh, G Lavin; J Kelly (A Quinn 56).
Jay Merriman.
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