O’Toole seals dramatic win as last-gasp point pips Clare

Westmeath 1-11, Clare 0-13

By Gerry Buckley

At various stages of his illustrious career, the late, great Páidí Ó Sé managed both of last Sunday’s participants in a very windy TEG Cusack Park, but the side with which he had unprecedented success in 2004 undoubtedly had the ‘rub of the relic’ he often spoke of when they defeated the Banner County men by a point in what was an action-packed encounter.

Conor Dillon seemed fortunate to open the scoring with a deflected goal, while Clare sub Cormac Murray seemed very unfortunate to have his late, late ‘goal’ disallowed for a ‘square ball’ offence. The latter decision by the officials resulted in an audible sigh of relief from the substantial home crowd, whose emotions turned to great joy some two minutes later when Ronan O’Toole kicked a superb winning score.

However, Dessie Dolan’s troops are to be warmly applauded for showing tremendous fighting spirit, as they looked set for what would have been a potentially fatal loss of two National League points when Alan Sweeney’s great point in the 59th minute put the visitors five points clear (0-12 to 1-4). The maroon and white-clad outfit were deserted by Lady Luck in their so-near-and-yet-so-far Sam Maguire Cup games last year, so a ‘rub of the relic’ was perhaps overdue as they maintained their 100 per cent start in what is a dog-eat-dog Division 3.

The very strong wind blowing towards the scoreboard end of the ground favoured Clare in the first half, but Westmeath had total control of the ball for the opening four minutes and were rewarded with the aforementioned goal from Dillon, who appeared to be going for a point.

However, the home team only scored once more during the remainder of the half, courtesy of a fisted effort from Ronan Wallace in the 25th minute, at which stage Mark Fitzgerald’s men had raised six white flags. The winners shot five wides in the first moiety, some of them very poor efforts from good positions, while Jonathan Lynam spurned a great goal opportunity four minutes earlier after fine approach work from Wallace and Senan Baker, with Stephen Ryan comfortably saving The Downs man’s effort.

For their part, the Banner County men scored ten points, many as a result of patient moves as they tried to break down the Lake County’s defensive structure. Dermot Coughlan was particularly impressive at wing forward and he fired over a hat-trick of quality points. The other Clare points came from the boots of Ciaran Downes (also three, including a seventh-minute ‘45’), wing back Daniel Walsh, a wonderful long-range score from ‘keeper Ryan in the 19th minute, and a brace of converted frees by Emmet McMahon. The saffron and blue-clad outfit deservedly led by 0-10 to 1-1 at the interval, but most Westmeath Gaels still felt that a six-point deficit was not insurmountable given the strength of the wind.

Lorcan Dolan was black-carded within a minute of the resumption of play, as Luke Loughlin looked set to find the target. O’Toole kicked a great point in the 41st minute, but Westmeath were struggling somewhat with the wind in a stop/start encounter. Aaron Griffin kicked a great Clare point under pressure in the 48th minute, but a brace of routine frees from Loughlin kept Westmeath in touch. However, Sweeney’s fine point put Clare ahead by five points with a little over ten minutes of normal time remaining, and they looked set to pick up their second set of league points.

To their great credit, Westmeath dug deep at this juncture and a purple patch yielded six points without reply in an eight-minute period via Robbie Forde (a free), O’Toole (a great team score), Kieran Martin (a very good ‘mark’), the influential Ray Connellan (an inspirational score), and two from Sam McCartan (the first of them with his fist). Westmeath now led by a point (1-10 to 0-12).

Coughlan picked up his second yellow card of the afternoon with normal time almost up. A minimum of six minutes of added-time was announced, and Brian McNamara rifled over a great equaliser in the first of these. Three minutes later, sub Einne O’Connor appeared to be trying to fist a point and fellow-sub Murray slapped the loose ball to the net from point-blank range. Luckily for the winners, the ‘goal’ was disallowed.

Either side of the ‘goal’, McCartan (a ‘45’) and Connellan (from play) were narrowly wide. However, cometh the hour cometh the man, and up popped All Star nominee O'Toole to kick a superb winning score. There was still time for lively Westmeath sub Matthew Whittaker to be black-carded for a cynical foul.

Scorers – Westmeath: R O’Toole 0-3, C Dillon 1-0, S McCartan, L Loughlin (2f) 0-2 each, R Wallace, R Connellan, R Forde (f), K Martin (m) 0-1 each. Clare: D Coughlan, C Downes (1‘45’) 0-3 each, E McMahon 0-2 (2f), S Ryan, A Sweeney, D Walsh, B McNamara, A Griffin 0-1 each.

Westmeath: Jason Daly; James Dolan, Charlie Drumm, Jamie Gonoud; Sam McCartan, Ronan Wallace, Conor Dillon; Ray Connellan, Andy McCormack; David Lynch, Ronan O'Toole, Jonathan Lynam; Luke Loughlin, Senan Baker, Lorcan Dolan. Subs used: Jack Smith for J Dolan (42), Eoin Mulvihill for Dillon (48), Kieran Martin for Baker (53), Robbie Forde for L Dolan (53), Matthew Whittaker for Lynam (61).

Clare: Stephen Ryan; Manus Doherty, Ronan Lanigan, Micheál Garry; Ikem Ugweru, Alan Sweeney, Daniel Walsh; Gavin Murray, Brian McNamara; Dermot Coughlan, Emmet McMahon, Ciaran Downes; Mark McInerney, Aaron Griffin, Shane Griffin. Subs used: Cillian Rouine for McInerney (h-t), Einne O'Connor for Rouine (inj., 48), Cormac Murray for S Griffin (62), Fergal Ginnane for Ugweru (69).

Ref: David Murnane (Cork).

Man of the match: Andy McCormack (Westmeath). Something of an unsung hero, the Rosemount man never fails to deliver a totally honest performance, and his hard graft last Sunday was hugely instrumental in his side’s late recovery.

Key moment: Had there been a VAR box, the officials therein would have needed a lot of time to rule on Cormac Murray’s late disallowed ‘goal’, but it certainly appeared in real time that it might well be allowed.

Stats watch: Wides - Westmeath 11 (first half, 5); Clare 4 (4). ‘45’s - Westmeath 2 (1); Clare 1 (1). Yellow cards - Westmeath 5 – J Dolan, R Wallace, C Dillon, R Connellan, R Forde; Clare 5 – I Ugweru, G Murray, E McMahon, D Coughlan (2). Black cards - Westmeath 2 – L Dolan, M Whittaker; Clare 0. Red cards - Westmeath 0; Clare 1 – D Coughlan

Match officials: David Murnane was somewhat ‘card happy’, but he did a decent job in general in what was a tricky encounter. In truth, there would have been very few dissenting home voices had he and his umpires allowed Murray’s ‘goal’ with footage afterwards confirming it was perfectly alright.

Next up: Westmeath travel to Aughrim to play Wicklow on January 18, and Clare make the journey to Tullamore on the same day.

Footnote: Prior to the throw-in, a minute’s silence was observed in memory of two recently deceased Westmeath Gaels, Jimmy Murphy (Moyvore and Tyrrellspass) and Mick Price (Mullingar).