Summerhill (Meath)…2-22
Emmett Og Killoe (Longford)…1-16
Life works in mysterious ways. The lifelong passion for and/or obsession with all things agricultural in this seat will be nothing new to anybody who has even glanced in this direction since the location your cursor is currently parked was first constructed some 15 years ago. Relationships therewith have changed, in some ways irreversibly, with that whole area in the interim. But nothing or nobody will ever extinguish that fire in me, no matter how much or how often they try.
What many wouldn’t realise is the relationships and spin offs which occur when the two great passions in life – sport and farming – collide. Or indeed when interest in one sport transcends another. Whether that be Meath’s Graham Geraghty going to Arsenal or David Beggy playing rugby with Blackrock College or, more basically, the intrinsic link there is between GAA and horse racing.
What mightn’t be as easy to decipher though, is the overlap which can occur between sport and farming. Yet that exact factor gave yours truly a unique angle to work with in the lead up to Sunday’s Leinster Club SFC encounter between Meath kingpins Summerhill and Emmet Og from Killoe in Co Longford. You see, to soothe the pining for and keep the connection with farming, YouTube is an absolute life saver. Especially at this time of year when being out and about simply isn’t possible. Well, across the land anyway.
Which is where the video sharing and viewing portal comes in. When one is in need of the comfort and reassurance which only farming can bring – to me at least – the Farmer Phil channel is always the first port of call. That being Philip Stewart, who, along with his wife Liv and family, run Stewart’s Family Farm in Ballinamore, Co Longford. What could never have been foreseen, though, was that following Phil’s channel would be such a universal conversation starter whenever anybody from Longford is encountered. Either in person or online.
Here’s just one example. Encountering somebody on X who happens to be the owner of Begley’s Bar in Killoe – Irish Pub Of The Year last year – but who also happened to live in Navan for quite some time. Thus, the content of initial conversations went as follows:
B: Is Killoe far from Ballinamore?
N: Are you looking for Farmer Phil?
B: Yeah, and Mac’s Shack in Kenagh if possible.
Then came the inevitable ‘Are you related to Sean Boylan’? Followed by the time-honoured response that my father – still with us at the time – was also called Sean but even though we only live 100 yards apart, no, we’re not related. From there, the chat went in the predictably GAA-dominated direction.
B: Mickey Quinn’s from Killoe, isn’t he?
N: Yeah, how the hell do you know him?
B: Ah he played International Rules with Tommy O’Connor from my own club years ago.
So, with yours truly being in the privileged position of being extremely close to Summerhill boss Dave Clare, knowing his troops were going to be taking on Killoe gave me a wry grin but at the same time a realisation that the Meath representatives would have to be at their optimum to negotiate a potentially lethal challenge.
The challenge being that, aside from the obvious footballing talent they have in their side, having triumphed in their own territory five times in the last half dozen seasons, they would have considerably more of the knowhow which is a prerequisite to getting anywhere at this level in the bank.
Something which was underlined when the white and green rattled off a salvo of scores from Paddy Moran and Mark Hughes and the highly impressive James Moran at wing back.
Eventually though, the locals got to the pace of the game with the combative Adam McDonnell and Liam Shaw and the Frayne brothers -Conor and Eoghan – all engaging the services of the umpires as the nine time Meath winners got themselves well back into contention.
However, as if to underline how much of competing at this level amounts to venturing into the unknown, just when it appeared the Ross Ryan-captained side appeared to be regaining a foothold, the evergreen Mickey Quinn led a midland’s charge towards the goal at the Navan O’Mahonys end and his ball across the square was directed to the net by the in-rushing Larry Moran.
Trailing by 0-07 to 1-10 on the run in to half time, if the game were as she once was – and especially given the putrid record of Meath teams at this levels of competition – it would’ve been curtains for which ever team it happened to be. But for one thing, the game has changed drastically for the better and for another, this is Summerhill we’re dealing with.
As was opined previously in this space, the ‘Hill are a different animal when they arrive at knockout football. Something underlined when McDonnell, Eoghan Frayne and the irrepressible Davy Larkin slotted over before Frayne and Jamie O’Shea between them ‘persuaded’ the ball into the Killoe net. Which meant that the Meath winners had got back to within a point of their opponents by the time they were shooting in the opposite direction.
Indeed, even though the white and green still numerically led on the board, gut feeling was that all the momentum lay with Dave Clare’s crew heading into Act II. A feeling only accentuated when one of his Energizer Bunnies in the half forward line, Kevin Ryan, hared through the centre and fisted over. Then, the third member of the three quarter line – Diarmuid McCabe – pointed from a standing start with the accuracy of a fly pinging touch in a similar fashion.
Then Liam Shaw split the posts with another superlative strike which – on any other day – would’ve been the headline-grabbing score of the day. But then Adam McDonnell started doing Adam McDonnell things. That is to say, dispatching a Lee Keegan-esque slicer spinning towards the O’Mahonys bar.
Minutes later he tried to repeat the trick but on this occasion was clipped in transit and was in the process of dropping short when the Lord Of The Skies – the artist also known as Adam Flanagan – reprimanded the ball with his gargantuan fist and it duly nestled in the net. So, even though in fairness to them the Longford side never gave up, from there the Gordon Elliott-sponsored outfit proceeded in a steady gallop to the finish line as the luxury of being able to bring the likes of John Lavelle, John Keane, Conor Lyons and Kevin Lyons in off the bench to close out their days work.
All of which now means they go on to face Athy in the home of horse racing (according to themselves) where, to borrow a bit of parlance from that code, they will be considered to be also-rans by everybody bar themselves. Never a bad position to be in. Meath teams are traditionally at their best when written off. They don’t come more traditional than the ‘Hill.
Furthermore, while it could hardly be said they will be wounded by being written off, a pride of hurting Lyons’ is a very dangerous proposition.
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