Biddies make history as Ulster final beckons

St Brigid’s Cloughmills 0-18 Mac Cumhaill’s 0-15

ST Brigid’s Cloughmills created a bit of history on Sunday when they qualified for the Ulster Club Junior Hurling final by beating Donegal champions Mac Cumhaill’s in the semi-final at Dungannon.

In a thrilling game the ‘Biddies’ got the better of their opponents for whom ace marksman Lee Henderson scored thirteen of his team’s fifteen points.

Cloughmills opened strongly and were 0-8 to 0-3 up after 17 minutes with some impressive hurling.

However Henderson reeled off 4 frees in succession to bring his team back into contention in the second quarter. The Donegal men only trailed by a single point at this stage but two superbly struck long-range frees from centre-half-back Aaron Smiley pulled Cloughmills 0-10 to 0-7 ahead by the half-time whistle.

Henderson’s accuracy pulled St Cumhaill’s back level at 0-12 each by the end of the third quarter, but Stephen Smyth roused Cloughmills with a huge point from distance and Smiley hit two in a row, again from long range frees, to give the Antrim champions a lead they were not to lose in the run in to the final whistle.

A fantastic achievement by the Cloughmills men who now look forward to an Ulster final meeting with Iniskeen of Monaghan in two weeks time.

St Brigid’s : C McKieraan, T McLaughlin, M Morrison, S Martin, D Morrison, A Smiley 0-5 frees, D McLaughlin, C Laverty 0-3, S Smyth 0- 1, M Devlin 0- 3, G McCollam, A Patterson, D Watson, J Doherty, L Kearns 0-3 frees.

Subs : J McGuckian 0-1 for D Watson (38), R McKinley for A Pattersonn (4

Referee : Brendan Sweeney (Cavan)