Cavan defeat Tyrone in u-21 final…again

Conor McAliskey, Tyrone, in action against Jack Brady, Cavan. Cadbury Ulster GAA Football Under 21 Championship Final

CAVAN have achieved the remarkable feat of capturing three underage Ulster title in the space of 12 months. An accomplished performance saw the Breffni men make it back-to-back titles in Brewster. Tyrone can have no complaints as, once again, a fancied Red Hand u-21 outfit came up short on the big occasion.

A penalty goal right at the start flashed the initial warning signals for Tyrone, they trailed by two at the break and were fighting a losing battle for much of the second period as Cavan showed no signs of yielding the initiative.

Just under 30 seconds had elapsed when a long ball into the danger area resulted in Chris Conroy being fouled. Darragh Sexton stepped up to fire low and hard past Darragh McAnenly to give the reigning champions a dream start in front of a crowd of almost 6,000. That larger than expected attendance had also seen the start of the game delayed by ten minutes.

Pointed frees from Richard Donnelly and Darren McCurry settled the Tyrone nerves as some good attacking play from Niall Sludden and Sean Warnock boosted their confidence.

However, the threat posed by Cavan was very real indeed and Darragh McAnenly had to be on his toes to prevent a second goal after full-forward target man, Kevin Tierney broke free from his marker to rattle off a shot.

Little separated the teams throughout that first half and swapped points between Kevin Tierney for Cavan and a great effort from Tyrone’s Stefan Tierney left the minimum between them on a score of 1-1 to 0-3 the end of the first quarter.

The full story is in the current issue of Gaelic Life, published Thursday April 12. Buy your copy now in your local newsagent, or online by clicking the subscribe button on this page.