Cork SFC Final: Nemo Rangers put in another masterclass when it matters to cap centenary year

Nemo Rangers 1-16 St Finbarr’s 2-9

In a year of anniversaries, Nemo Rangers reached the happy ending they had yearned for. In their centenary year, and 50 years after their first Cork senior football title, they bowled over their great city rivals, summoning their best performance of the season on a day when nothing less would have done.

St Finbarr’s relinquished their Cork and Munster titles with a spirited last 20 minutes, but for the first 40 minutes they were flat and mostly flummoxed. All over the field they struggled to match Nemo’s energy and aggression and by half-time they were bailing water. Brian Hayes’s goal, when they were 11 points down, ignited a terrific comeback, and for a while more than one outcome seemed to be on the table. But by the time the Barr’s brought the deficit back to three points they had run out of road.

This was yet another masterclass from Nemo in a county final, their happy place. Their record now stands at an astonishing 23 county final wins from 26 appearances, and all of that tribal know-how was blended into this performance. From the beginning they knocked the Barr’s out of their stride and Nemo’s efficiency in the first half was staggering when they kicked nine points at the expense of just one wide.

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It was a personal triumph for their captain Luke Connolly. Dropped from the Cork panel at the start of the year, he kicked eight points in a man-of-the-match performance, including two towering scores from the wing early in the second half, when Nemo unleashed a surge of scores to more than double their half-time lead in less than 10 minutes.

“We were criticised coming into it,” said Connolly. “I think this group was a bit disrespected to be perfectly honest. This was three counties in four years [for us] and I felt coming into this game we were almost like a team in our first county final the way we were being spoken about. I think a lot of people wrote us off based on a quarter-final.

“I don’t want to sound arrogant but that’s what Nemo teams are reared on, getting to county finals and peaking at the right time of the year. I feel we did that.”

Nemo were electric in the first half. Their fierce tackling generated a stream of turnovers and the Barr’s couldn’t get any rhythm in their forward play. Nemo held an edge in the middle third, too, and they ran at the Barr’s in waves.

Their shooting was terrific. The outstanding Conor Horgan kicked three sweet points from wing forward, Connolly was unerring from frees, and Barry O’Driscoll flashed a shot over the bar when he probably had a goal on his mind.

Nemo created another goal chance, seven minutes before the break, when the mercurial Connolly floated an exquisite 30-metre pass into the path of Mark Cronin, but his shot was brilliantly stopped by John Kerins. By then, the Barr’s were hanging on.

The Barr’s scored just once in the last 22 minutes of the first half, but they created a glorious goal chance, seven minutes before the break, when they desperately needed something to break Nemo’s momentum. Colin Lyons burst through the heart of the Nemo defence, but his shot was expertly saved by Micheál Martin, and when the ball broke to Steven Sherlock, Martin made another breathtaking stop.

Nemo led by 0-9 to 0-4 at half-time, and soon turned the screw. After a couple of points from Connolly at the beginning of the second half, a Barr’s kick-out was misdirected straight to Conor Horgan, who coolly guided the ball to the unguarded net from about 30 metres. Nemo immediately added two more points to stretch their lead to 1-13 to 0-5 and seemingly out of sight.

From the bottom of their hearts, though, the Barr’s dredged some resistance. Brian Hayes found the net from close range, after a lovely pass from Eoin McGreevy, and when Billy Hennessy conjured a second Barr’s goal 10 minutes from the end Nemo were scrambling. Two more points brought the deficit down to just three with as many minutes of normal-time remaining, but the third goal that the Barr’s desperately needed failed to materialise.

Kieran O’Sullivan’s point in the fourth minute of stoppage-time was Nemo’s first score for 16 minutes, but it was all the insurance they needed.

NEMO RANGERS: M Martin; K Histon, B Murphy, K O’Donovan (0-1); C McCartan, S Cronin, K Fulignati; B Cripps, A O’Donovan; C Horgan (1-3), R Dalton (0-2), J Horgan; M Cronin, B O’Driscoll (0-1), L Connolly (0-8 five frees).

Subs: P Kerrigan for R Dalton (47 mins), L Horgan for J Horan, C Dalton for C Horgan (both 54 mins), K O’Sullivan (0-1) for Fulignati (57), C O’Donovan for Cripps (60)

ST FINBARR’S: J Kerins; S Ryan, J Burns, C Scully; C Lyons, B Hennessy (1-0), A O’Connor; I Maguire (0-1), E Comyns; E Twomey, S Sherlock (0-6, five frees), B Hayes (1-0); E Dennehy, E McGreevy (0-1), C Myers Murray.

Subs: D Quinn for Comyns (33 mins), B O’Connor (0-1) for Twomey (h-t), C Dennehy for Myers Murray (45), A Lyne for E Dennehy (56).

Referee: Alan Long (Argideen Rangers)