By Niall Gartland

PATRICIAN HIGH not only claimed their fourth ever MacLarnon Cup title but also earned some local bragging rights when they overcame Our Lady’s Castleblayney last Friday night.

The Carrickmacross school were full value for their 2-13 and 1-10 victory and add to previous titles won in 1997, 1998 and more recently, 2016.

Oram native Lorcan Keenan, who manages the team alongside Martin Mills and Sean Rafferty, says they took a while to settle, but once they did there was no stopping them and they led by 1-10 to 0-4 at half-time, albeit with a serious wind advantage in the first-half.

Castleblayney battled hard after the break, but they left themselves too much to do as Patrician deservedly claimed the MacLarnon title in front of just over 3,000 spectators.

Keenan said: “I suppose it was a huge wind we had at our backs in the first half, we probably didn’t make great use of it in the first ten minutes.

“But once we found a bit of rhythm we started to pick off the scores alright and then obviously in the second-half they had the wind so we were expecting a comeback of some sort anyway. I’d say the wind had a big part to play in the entire game.”

Their best performer on the day was Dylan Byrne, who was awarded the official Man of the Match award, while a late goal from Dylan McConnell sealed their victory over their neighbouring school.

Commenting on their young star, Keenan said: “Dylan scored 1-1, he was centre forward for us and then we brought him back in the second half to pick up one of their better players.

“Dylan’s a good lad and has been playing senior football with Magheracloone all year so that told on the day, that he was one of our more experienced men. He’s a good fella and a fine athlete, and he’s on the Monaghan u-20 team as well.”

Another reason why victory tasted so sweet was that this crop of players hadn’t won anything in previous years at the school. Only nine starters are in final year as well so they should be able to put up a strong challenge in 20223 as well. For now, however, their focus will be their All-Ireland semi-final against Tipperary side Abbey on February 26.

“We played MacRory Cup after we won the Rannafast in 2016, that was a strong team. But this current crop hadn’t won anything the whole way up at ‘B’ level so we stayed at MacLarnon. We’re glad to have the win so we have something sorted for these guys.”