Blue is the colour as Roche and Glyde take titles

The cream, they say, always comes to the top. St Mary’s are through to the Louth senior championship and on Sunday week at Dowdallshill play the team they deposed as champions past year, Naomh Mairtín.

On a weekend when blue, the two shades of it, was the colour to be wearing, Roche Emmets took full advantage of O’Rahilly’s wastage to gather the intermediate championship, and Glyde Rangers put a whole litany of near misses over the years behind them to win the junior title, beating Naomh Finbarra.

There was no other team better priced than Mary’s and Mairtíns when the betting opened a number of weeks back. Though both turned in a ropey performance on the way to the last round, their place in the final doesn’t come as a surprise.

However, as their semi-final with Dreadnots drew to a close last week-end, Mairtíns had the look of losers about them. They trailed by six points to a team producing their best performance of the season.

But Mairtins haven’t won two of the last three runnings of the Joe Ward Cup by throwing in the towel. A few scores on the trot gave the incentive to try even harder, and with the clock reading beyond the 60 minutes, they were right on Dreadnots’ shoulder, just two points behind.

Dreadnots will have nightmares about how they surrendered the lead. When they should have been adopting the age-old policy of any port in a storm by getting length into a clearance, they idled, were robbed and from the turn-over, Mairtíns got the ball to Sam Mulroy inside the square.

The countyman was fouled before making no mistake from the resulting penalty. Dreadnots had the chance to level it when awarded a free around the 45 metre mark, but with the wind as an obstacle, a point proved beyond James Califf.

A cruel way for Dreadnots to go out, but Mairtin’s will say they enjoyed no luck at the same Darver venue in their semi-final last year.

It was St Mary’s who picked the Monasterboice side’s pocket at the same stage before going on to win the final. Now the two same teams are set to go head to head at St Brigid’s Park, and what a game that promises to be. Mary’s had an easier than expected passage in their semi-final with St Patrick’s. A game that produced an abundance of goals always seemed to be going the Ardee side’s way after they had wiped out Pat’s early lead.

Mary’s were always on top at midfield, and this dominance led to their forwards enjoying a plentiful supply. Four attacks led to goals, and though Eoin O’Connor kept Pat’s in it with a couple of beautiful strikes, the title-holders always had the look of winners about them.

Mary’s have a liking for St Brigid’s Park. It was there where they got the better of Newtown Blues in last year’s replayed final, and as the Dowdallshill venue wouldn’t be well known to Mairtin’s – have they ever played there? – could the choice of venue give the champions an advantage?

If Dreadnots were feeling sorry for themselves, how must it have been for O’Rahilly’s? As they fought to wipe out a Roche Emmets’ two-point lead in the last ten minutes – a period they dominated almost to the exclusion of the opposition – the green-and-whites were awarded free after free, all very scoreable. Only one was converted – arguably from the most difficult angle – leaving them to feel very sorry for themselves when Jonathon Conlon blew the final whistle.

Though lucky to win this match, Roche had a decent enough campaign, their semi-final win over Kilkerley Emmets the highlight. There was also a noteworthy quarter-final defeat of Hunterstown Rovers, this coming after a less than impressive run through the qualifiers.

Their longest server, Barry O’Hare, was deserving of being the one to be presented with the Seamus Flood Cup. The ace free-taker might just be tempted to have another sot at senior football, which Roche haven’t contested in 17 years.

And could there be any team more deserving of a championship win than Glyde Rangers? Serial losers in junior finals in recent times, and before that going without a championship success since 1996, the Tallanstown side, backboned by county team centre-half, Niall Sharkey, had the four-time winners of the Christy Bellew Cup to contend with at Stabannon. They passed the test in fine style.

There’ll be no-one happier than the club’s long-serving secretary, Tommy Burns.