Roscommon win thrilling Connacht minor final over Mayo

Connacht MFC final: Mayo 1-15 Roscommon 2-14

In a thrilling contest that was lit up by star performances from two outstanding corner forwards, this evening’s Connacht minor final was ultimately settled by a goal from Dara Curran after 57 minutes.

The goal from the Roscommon captain effectively broke Mayo‘s run of three consecutive titles at this level and gave the Rossies their first title since their win over Sligo on Stephen’s Day of 2020.

Tony Carey of Mayo and Roscommon’s John Price, the latter named Man of the Match afterwards, were in sensational form, kicking 1-4 and 1-3 respectively. Carey opened the scoring with a classy finish in the first minute while Price finally got Roscommon going 20 minutes later with his green flag, by which time his side had just 0-2 on the board.

In a game where both sides had strong purple patches, Roscommon caught fire in the lead up to half-time to take a 1-7 to 1-4 interval lead. Price was the star of the show up front, with Diarmuid O’Higgins, Tadhg Rogers and Alex Oates helping to establish the away side’s dominance in their own half of the field.

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The third quarter saw Mayo take over, and they did this despite suffering the hammer blow of losing both starting midfielders to injury in the minutes either side of the half-time break. Conor Hession dropped out from the full forward line to carry the load in the middle and with Carey running riot inside, they outscored Roscommon by 0-8 to 0-1 up to the 45-minute mark.

Another John Price point and a neat finish from an incredibly tight angle from substitute Seamie Carthy got Roscommon back in the game, and they drew level to set up a grandstand finish in the 56th minute through Dean Casey’s second long-range free.

The key score was Curran’s goal a minute later, set up by Sam Hannon’s instinctive intercept of a pass across the last line of Mayo defence, and while the home side fired back with points from Dara Flanagan and Rhys Neary, they could not engineer an equaliser and it fell to Casey to round off the scoring.

Mayo: T Williams; C Coghill, B Langan, C Tighe; R O’Donnell, D Duffy, D Flanagan (0-2); A Kelly, C May; P Garvey, B Holmes (0-2, 0-1f), C Jordan; T Carey (1-4), C Hession (0-5, 0-2f, 1tpf), O Murphy.

Subs: B Joyce for May (29), R Neary (0-1) for Garvey (half-time), Fionn Ó Cinnseala for Kelly (34), Fiachra Ó Cinnseala (0-1) for Murphy (49), P Quinn for Holmes (60).

Roscommon: C Trimble; C Fitzgerald, D O’Higgins, J Cassidy; T Rogers, C Tighe, S Hannon; S McGuinness, A Oates; A Killian (0-1), D Curran (1-0), C Feerick (0-1); J Price (1-3), D Casey (0-7, 2tpf, 0-2f), L Shally (0-1).

Subs: S Carthy (0-1) for Oates (37), M Shally for L Shally (41), S Hussey for Killian (44), T Fallon for Fitzgerald (47), C Kelly for Feerick (57).

Referee: Ronan Hynes (Sligo).