Ramor minors lose out to Derry champions
Ulster Minor Club Tournament
Dungiven (Derry) 3-12
Ramor United 0-11
Cavan’s disappointing run in the Ulster Club Minor Football Tournament at the St Paul’s club in Belfast continued on Sunday as Ramor United slipped to a 10-point loss against Derry champions Dungiven.
A physically-imposing Dungiven were deserving winners in the end but were flattered by the final scoreline. At the end of an even first half, the Derry lads were ahead by 0-6 to 0-5 and with six minutes to go, there remained just four points between the sides.
However, Dungiven ran in three goals in the final 10 minutes, including one with the final play of the match, to eventually see them into the last four with quite a bit to spare.
In nippy conditions, a good crowd made the trip north for the prestigious tournament which has played host to some of the best players in the province. Indeed, the Glen Watty Grahams team who won the Ulster Senior Championship on Sunday was backboned by their St Paul’s four-in-a-row winners, the last of whom beat Cavan’s Southern Gaels (Lacken-Gowna) in extra time in the final.
Dungiven’s first goal came in the closing stages of this match from Man of the Match Odhran Murphy before Conor Gaile grabbed the second after Dungiven managed to nab a Ramor kick-out and tore through the heart of the defence at rapid pace. The third goal was supplied by Ryan McCloskey.
Ramor will take some positives from this match in that they battled to the end and did so without a couple of important players, with goalkeeper Cillian Hagan picking up an injury on schools duty with Virginia College in midweek and forward Noah Lotscher out of the country.
With a couple of others carrying bugs in the week before the game, it made preparations difficult but the Cavan lads gave a good account of themselves and were unfortunate to leak the late goals.
Dungiven were tactically adept; they were hard to break down and very impressive in how they gobbled up breaking ball.
Up front, they had some impressive players, notably Odhran Murphy and Eoin Higgins, although the latter was well marshalled by county minor Nathan Levy-Valensi.
One of the highlights for the Cavan side was a superb display of place-kicking from centre half-forward Matthew Smith, who stroked over a 45 and several frees from the ground.
Also on the mark for Ramor were full-forward Ben O’Hara, who raised two white flags, Oliver McCrystal and Shane Keenan.
Three points in succession just before half-time saw Conor McCrystal’s side cut the gap to the minimum at the break; the Virginia lads had momentum on their side at this stage and would have preferred if the half-time break had not arrived as it did.
As it panned out, the third quarter was cagey but Dungiven managed to put four between the teams and then struck for those late goals which put an ugly complexion on the scoreboard for Ramor, who defeated Killygarry and Cavan Gaels in hard-fought county finals and semi-finals respectively.
There was a sense that this was a great opportunity for Ramor to advance as Dungiven appeared slightly vulnerable in some aspects of their play but the Derry team were deserving winners in the end. Both sides had some joy pressing up on the others’ kick-out but in the end, Ramor made too many unforced errors.
They may have got away with those in the county championships but this was a higher standard and they were ultimately punished.
So, Ramor bow out. For the record, the nine clubs who qualified to play in the St Paul’s tournament were Irvinestown, Four Masters (Donegal), Burren (Down), St Brigid’s (Antrim), Clan na Gael (Armagh), Donaghmore (Tyrone) and Scotstown (Monaghan).
Ramor United: Daniel Keogan, Nathan Conway, Jensen Tynan, Nathan Fallon, Oliver McCrystal, Nathan Levy-Valensi, Christian Kermath, Shane Keenan, Niall Burns, Cian McCrystal, Matthew Smith, Sean Cullen, Aaron Tynan, Ben O’Hara, Conor Brady
Subs: Sean O’Donoghue for C Brady, Ben Mulvey for S Cullen