DENIS FARRAGHER’S match-winning penalty save proved decisive as Monivea Abbey edged out Milltown in a titanic Galway Senior Football Championship preliminary quarter-final battle at Tuam Stadium on Sunday evening.

With just one minute remaining, Farragher produced a superb stop to deny Martin from the penalty spot, allowing Monivea Abbey to cling on and secure their place in the Galway SFC quarter-finals for the first time since 2017. Peter Maher’s charges will face Corofin in the last eight.

“We are over the moon, we were saying before the game we hadn’t played a knockout championship game in senior football since 2017, we said we were going to give it our all. We seem to love a bit of drama at the end, the Dunmore game was the same way, leading with the game nearly over and managed to give away a chance but we came out the right side of it today so we are happy enough,” Farragher told Tribune Sport after Monivea Abbey’s win over Milltown in the Galway Senior Football Championship Preliminary quarter-final.

“I’ve actually seen Mike Martin take a few penalties, I was thinking if he takes a couple of steps to my right he’s probably going down to my left, I knew he was going to strike it well. So I said, I’m, going to have to go early and hope for the best, listen probably a 50 per cent chance of guessing right and thankfully I done that today.”

Monivea-Abbey bounced back impressively on the back of a 19 point defeat to Moycullen in round three of the Galway SFC. In the lead-up to the penalty, midfielder Darragh Burke was dismissed on a straight red card for an off-the-ball incident with Milltown’s Darragh Costello. Maher will hope to have both Burke and Cillian McDaid available for the quarter-final against Corofin.McDaid limped off with a hamstring injury during the first half.

Lewis Ryan and Lee Kenny provided attacking energy from deep, Mullins dominated the physical exchanges, while Moran and Niall Mannion impressed in attack, scoring 0-6 between them. Milltown’s inside line of Martin, Eoin Mannion and Costello contributed 0-11 of their side’s total.

“Moycullen are an absolutely savage team, we were very disappointed afterwards but when we looked back at the game, we actually did a lot of things right. We just left ourselves too open and they punished us every single time, we put up 19 points, 5-13 against Dunmore and 0-17 or something like that against Leitir Moir, we knew if we could tighten things up at the back we would have enough to bring Milltown down the stretch.

“We’ve got young lads there who haven’t really experienced open senior championship, they don’t care, they just keep going for it. Them lads are fearless and they’re great to have, we’ve dressing room full of younger lads coming, it’s good to show them this side of championship rather than being stuck down in relegation dog fights the last couple of years,” added the Monivea Abbey shotstopper.