Late point means sides must do it all again

St James’ 1-11Carna/Caiseal 0-14

Alan Dooley

An injury time point from Seosamh Seoige denied St James’ a place in their second successive intermediate championship football final and earned Carna/Caiseal a deserved replay after an entertaining semi-final in Pearse Stadium on Sunday afternoon.

Two clubs who are desperate to make the big step up to the senior ranks played out a thoroughly enjoyable, niggle-free 60 minutes in which attacking, accurate football flourished and where the seemingly now obligatory tactic of extracting a player each from the forward lines to congest the midfield sector was thankfully absent.

A powerful second half display had the Connemara men looking the more likely winners as time slipped away for the city side, but three points in the dying stages from Seamie Rabbitte, Paul Conroy, and Alan O’Donnell suddenly had Carna/Caiseal staring down the barrel of an unlikely defeat.

They were let off the hook in stoppage time, though, when the retreating Johnny Duane caught a ball right in front of goal that ‘keeper John Egan was trying to claim and the defender could clear only as far as Seoige, the game’s top scorer, who dutifully made no mistake from close range with the last chance of the game.

Having won this year’s league encounter between the two in Carna, St James’ came into the tie as slight favourites but were well aware of the threat to their title aspirations posed by star forward Niall Coyne and his colleagues.

Both sides were quickly on the board as Sean Ó Cuirrín and Seamie Rabbitte exchanged points, but it was Carna/Caiseal who surged into a lead as Ó Cuirrín and Seoige shared four points between them in a blistering five minute spell as they threatened to overrun the left side of the St James’ defence.

For more, read this week's Connacht Sentinel.