Mullingar Shamrocks win big derby clash

Defending championship St Loman’s, Mullingar, slumped to their second defeat of this year’s Westmeath senior football championship, losing by a point to local rivals Mullingar shamrocks at TEG Cusack Park on Sunday evening.

Paddy Fagan’s fisted point at the death gave the men in green victory, one that adds to the theory that the tide is rising in Springfield again, seven years after they last claimed the Flanagan Cup. Manager Micheál Burke praised the character of his players.

"Local derbies always are, they take on a life of their own. I’m very happy with the boys that they kept plugging away and kept at it. Even with their goal (by Sam McCartan) and a couple of two-pointers, they kept fighting and it was always going to come down to the last few minutes. Luckily, we were on the right side of it today,” he beamed.

St Loman’s, Mullingar are defending champions, and chasing another three-in-a-row, but they look a shadow of the team that won the title last year and the absence of John Heslin and Ronan O’Toole were just too much to absorb.

O’Toole won’t be back, but Heslin is very likely to feature in a crunch game against Tyrrellspass in the fifth round in two weeks’ time.

Manager Paddy Dowdall said he was “bitterly disappointed” at the loss of the local derby, before sportingly adding, “they are always the worst type of defeats – the last-second point – but we have to take it and move on. Fair play to Shamrocks, they kept going till the final whistle and they took their chances when they got them”.

Mullingar Shamrocks face the might of The Downs in the last round and are looking at a quarter-final at least. Their U20 footballers are through to the Division 1 football championship final against Tubberclair, further underlining their progress.

*See this week's Westmeath Examiner for full coverage of all 12 games in the senior and intermediate football championships, plus coverage of the Junior 1 football championship and the U20 football semi-finals.