What a day, what a game, extra time, penalties, and a nail-biting sudden-death penalty shoot-out to decide whether Kiltimagh or St Croans progressed to the Connacht final to meet Leitrim champions, Aughavas, on the 29^th of November. Luck was with us, and our goalkeeper, Jamie McNicholas, saved not one but two penalties, ensuring a great day for our club.

St Croans started brightly and got the first point from a free. However, we responded with a brilliant goal by Paul Kelly after a great interchange of play with Jack Niland and Oisin Mulderrig. Three minutes later, we had another goal chance but Conor Mallee’s effort was well saved by their keeper. Thomas Keegan followed up with a shot for a point, only for it to hit the post, but finally our efforts were rewarded with Brian Gallagher scoring a good point. Croans replied with a point, only for Thomas Keegan to cancel it out with his first point. Then Croans gifted Fionan Burke a point from a free by incurring their first breach (failure to keep three players in the our half). This did not deter Croans and after they scored another point, they were unlucky not to have scored a goal from an instinctive flick-on from an attempted point, only to be denied by Jamie in our goal.

At this stage, we were on top all over the field and added two more points to the scoreboard courtesy of  Fionan Burke and Paul Kelly, to move five points clear. However, Croans responded and started to build momentum, scoring two more points to cut our lead back to three. Then they shot themselves in the foot again, gifting Fionan Burke another point from a free as a result of their second breach. This made the score 1.06 to 0.05 in favour of us.

Despite this, Croans kept plugging away, and by the end of the third quarter, they had reduced our lead to just one point. We didn’t panic and battled on, but scores wouldn’t come. We hit six wides in the process before Jamie McNicholas scored a brilliant two-pointer to restore our lead to three points. We followed this up with our second goal by Fionan Burke, following a brilliant run by Liam Smyth. Croans countered this goal by one of their own, with one of their players deflecting a shot past Jamie in our goal. We suffered another setback in the 57^th minute and were reduced to 14 players when Kevin Mulderrig was shown a black card for a foul on a Croans player. Croans scored a further point, reducing our lead to one point, and at the end of normal playing time, they scored another point from a free, levelling the scores and forcing the game into extra time.

In the first period of extra time, their goalkeeper saved from Liam Smyth and Eoghan Lavin, and on three occasions they went ahead from pointed frees, only for them to be cancelled out by two points from Oisin Mulderrig and Thomas Keegan. At the end of extra time, the scores were level 2.11 to 1.14, and for the first time in our history, we were going to have to rely on penalties to win the game.

Both goalkeepers made crucial saves, and after the five mandatory penalties were taken by both teams, the scores were deadlocked, and we went to sudden-death. Leading by one and with Croans’ turn to take their penalty, all the pressure was on them to score. But “cometh the hour, cometh the man” and up stepped Jamie McNicholas with a brilliant save to put us through to the delight of the players, management, and supporters.

Team
Jamie McNicholas, Mattier Cummins, Kevin Mulderrig, Evan Cosgrove, Jack Niland, Liam Kelly, Darragh McGovern, Paul Kelly, Liam Smyth, Oisin Mulderrig, Conor Mallee, Brian Gallagher, Fionan Burke, Jordan Henry, Thomas Keegan

Substitutes used
Eoghan Lavin, Stephen McDonnell, Jack Mahon, David Lydon, Sean Carroll