Cross and Passion meet St Pat's Maghera in Mageean Cup final

This Mageean Cup hurling semi final turned out to be a close run thing as Cross and Passion Ballycastle survived a mighty come back from St Louis to secure their place in the final of the Mageean Cup against St Pat’s Maghera on December 6.

 

Twenty minutes into this encounter in Cushendun the Ballycastle lads looked set for a landslide victory when they  led by 1-9 to 0-1. They had taken their scores with relative ease to build up this deserved 11 point lead, and, despite having the benefit of a stiff breeze they appeared to be on course for a comfortable win.

 

However, things took a dramatic turn when the Ballymena sides ace forward Fiontan Bradley, who had been fairly well contained by the Town's defence, was hauled down in the large square and match referee Ray Matthews awarded a penalty.

The Ruairi Og star stepped up and blasted the sliotar home and all of a sudden things began to change and in the five minutes of play that remained in the opening half he added another three points to leave just six between the sides at the interval.

When Bradley hit the first three points of the second half the gap was back to three and at that stage the smart money was on the St Louis to advance.

The Ballycastle side, however, eventually found some rhythm in their play and stretched the lead back to six with the pressure apparently removed.

The Cullybackey Road side hit back with a vengeance to get it back to the minimum but star player Oisin McCallen intercepted a St Louis hand pass and found space to fire over the game clinching point.

McCallin was the player who got the Ballycastle college up and running at the start of the game and two further pointed frees were followed by points from Conan Johnston, Cadhan Crawford and Logan McConville.

 

Bradley got the Kintullagh side on the scoreboard when he pointed a difficult free on 15 minutes, but the champions were well on top and two more from McCallin and one from corner forward Paidi O’Kane were followed by the first goal of the game from the Dunloy youngster who cut through on goal and fired a ground shot to the net after his initial effort had been denied by a great ‘hook’ from St Louis defender Joe McFadden.

 

Eleven clear at this stage it looked a breeze for Cross and Pssion, but Bradley turned the game on its head with a goal and three points in the run-in to leave things looking a lot brighter for the Ballymena College as they made their way to the changing rooms at half time.

When McCallin got the first three points of the new half, to make it six in a row, the Ballycastle students appeared to be in trouble, but McCallin settled them with two good points, one on either side of fine score by Paidi O’Kane.

However, it was ten more minutes before they raised another flag and in that time St Louis knocked over four of their own to leave just two between the teams.

When Bradley cut it back to just one it appeared the champions were in trouble  but a stroke of genius by McCallin saw him split the post at the other end to put his team two clear.

Despite  St Louis scoring  the last point of the game it was to prove too little, too late and the Ballycastle lads were over the line and into their third final on the trot.

Cross and Passion scorers: P O’Kane 1-2, O McCallin 0-8 , C Johnson and C Crawford 0-2 each, L McConville 0-1.

St Louis scorers: F Bradley 1-9 , C McCollum 0-3, J McAlonan and C Smith 0-1