Breaffy 1-9
Castlebar Mitchels 0-10
Colm Gannon reports from Charlestown
BREAFFY EMERGED VICTORIOUS in this parish derby by two points following a bruising encounter in Charlestown and set them up for another crack at a first ever Mayo Senior Football Championship title.
Aidan O’Shea led the line at full forward, kicking four points and latterly came back to do plenty of defensive work as Breaffy held out a late Castlebar surge to win by two points.
Breaffy led by three points on a score of 0-6 to 0-3 at half time with O’Shea getting three of those scores, but Mitchels will be kicking themselves as they kicked eight wides in the first half and dropped a few short.
The second half started with a bang, Ethan Gibbons swung over a fine point to close the gap to two points just after his introduction. But Breaffy responded with the key score of the game when Davitt Neary found the back of the net, finishing off a move that involved O’Shea and Rory Martyn.
That score kicked life into Mitchels who reeled off five unanswered points over the next nine minutes to level the game up, with Bob Tuohy kicking two along with efforts from Paddy Durcan, Donnie Newcombe and Gibbons.
Aidan O’Shea responded with a free to calm the Breaffy nerves and not long after Colm Flynn slotted over another Breaffy point from a placed ball to put two between the teams with ten minutes to go.
Conor Stenson cut the gap back to a single score with a sweet effort to leave just one between the teams and the game on a knife-edge.
Breaffy sat back and soaked up the Mitchels pressure and on the break Daire Morrin got a point up to point and put his side two clear and they managed to hold on and book their place in the final in a fortnight’s time.
Meanwhile, Ballyhaunis have just defeated The Neale in the Mayo SFC relegation play-off by three points.
Scorers for Breaffy: Aidan O’Shea (0-4, 3f), Davitt Neary (1-0), Colm Flynn (0-1, 1f), Rory Martyn (0-1), Jack Livingstone (0-1, 1 45), Daire Morrin (0-1), Oisin Tunney (0-1)
Scorers for Castlebar Mitchels: Paddy Durcan (0-2), Ethan Gibbons (0-2), Bob Tuohy (0-2), Gavan Durcan (0-1), Paddy Heneghan (0-1), Donnie Newcombe (0-1)
Breaffy
1.Jack Livingstone
2. Conor Beirne, 3. Mark Dervan, 4. Conor Melly
5. David Livingstone, 6. Michael Hall, 7. Daire Morrin
8. Conor O’Shea, 9. Matthew Ruane
10. Davitt Neary, 11. Robert Fadden, 12. Rory Martyn
13. Tommy O’Reilly, 14. Aidan O’Shea, 29. Oisin Tunney
Subs:
- 17. Colm Flynn for Tommy O’Reilly
- 24. James Minogue for Oisin Tunney
- 18. Colm Kelly for Conor O’Shea
Castlebar Mitchels
1. Rory Byrne
2. Mark Dolan, 3. Joe Tuohy, 4. Sean Morahan
18. Michael Fahy, 6. Paddy Durcan, 7. Donie Newcombe
8. Donnacha McHugh, 9. Bob Tuohy
10. Ultan O’Reilly, 22. Paddy Heneghan, 12. Anthony O’Boyle
24. Mark Cunningham, 14. Gavin Durcan, 15. Neil Douglas
Subs:
- 11. James Durcan for Mark Dolan
- 13. Ethan Gibbons for Neil Douglas
- 19. Conor Stenson for Anthony O’Boyle
- Aidan Walsh for Mark Cunningham
Referee: Liam Devenney (Ballina)
Mayo SFC Relegation play-off
Ballyhaunis 1-10 The Neale 1-7
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