Kildare's Moorefield are the Leinster football champions for 2017, seeing off St. Lomans 1-14 to 2-10.
After weather forced the game to be postponed last week, today's final proved worth the wait as Moorefield launched a dramatic comeback to secure an All-Ireland semi-final place.
St. Lomans looked home and dry with 5 minutes of regular time left, with the score at 2-10 to 0-10 after 55 minutes. Moorefield had been up 0-07 to 0-04 at half-time before Ken Casey and Ronan O'Toole bagged two crucial goals to swing the game on its head.
Moorefield never panicked and led by the evergreen Ronan Sweeney, who at 37 clawed his club back into the game with a superb goal. An exhibition in free-taking from Eanna O’Connor secured three late points and ensured Moorefield had, incredibly, pulled back level. The additional 5 minutes served them well and at the death, a short O'Connor free was gathered by Kevin Murnaghan and stuck over the bar to complete a last-gasp resurgence.
Some finish in Portlaoise! Moorefield back from the dead. 2 mins to go..
— Des Curran (@Desicurran) December 17, 2017
Absolutely breathless. Brilliant stuff by Moorefield on that comeback
— Darragh Culhane (@DarraghCulhane) December 17, 2017
Some finish!!!🙄😳👏🏼🏐.....Ronan Sweeney take a bow!!! Eanna o Connor too🤩
— Tomás Ó Sé (@tomas5ky) December 17, 2017
St. Lomans will live to rue today, with a second-yellow for midfielder Paul Sharry proving pivotal in their collapse.
For Moorefield, today's win caps a monumental year. The Kildare champions won a county final despite being down to 13 men for the majority of the game. They are managed by Ross Galvin, in his first year at the helm. Glavin played midfield for Moorefield as a player. His partner back then, Daryl Flynn, is captain now.
Speaking to balls.ie earlier this year, Flynn lavished praise on the role Glavin has played despite his inexperience:
It’s going well, we won the league and championship. He’s a good head, even when playing with Ross he always had a good football brain, a great football mind. He’s the same on the side-line he’s calm, cool and collected. He has a great team around him, Frank and Kevin O’Neill. I’ve soldered with them on the pitch and it’s great to solder under them now. They’ve made leaps and bounds. People probably questioned them because they were very young and that Ross is the same age as me but hes had a great year.
It’s going well, it’s a good mixture there with the youth as well. Tis' probably hard for him from playing with us to trying to manage us, but he has took to it like a duck to water.
It is Moorefield's first Leinster Club Championship since 2006, and what a way to do it.
SEE ALSO: Alan Dillon Put Cillian O'Connor Through Baptism Of Fire As Mayo's Free-Taker
