Pearses get back on track as strong finish denies Clann

Pádraig Pearses 1-17 Clann na nGael 1-14

By Kevin Egan

Up until their Connacht final heartbreak against Coolera-Strandhill, 2024 was a magnificent year for Pádraig Pearses, with very few regrets. The exception to that rule was their Roscommon SFC opener in Johnstown, where a fortuitous Emmet Kenny goal and a late Ciarán Lennon winner meant that the home side picked up a narrow win on that occasion.

Last Friday night it was Pádraig Pearses who finished with a flourish, firing over the last four points in succession to surge across the finish line, in the process putting their bid to retain the Fahey Cup back on track.

If the 2025 inter-county championship taught us nothing else, it’s that the season was too long for teams to avoid a wobble along the line somewhere. Perhaps this too will just be a wobble for Clann, or perhaps this game is proof that Pearses’ loss to St Faithleach’s was the anomaly. Most spectators will have walked away from this game assuming the latter.

Certainly the reintroduction of newly-garlanded Chicago SFC champions Eoin Colleran and Caelim Keogh, as well as Gavin Downey and Jack Tumulty, greatly improved the Pearses team. The dominant finish by Frank Canning’s troops, with Clann unable to lay a hand on them even as they were chasing the game, would suggest that Clann were drained of energy and unable to match Pearses for fitness, though the story of why the game unfolded as it did is another matter.

The only place to begin examining that question is by laying out how the action played out. Clann won the throw-in and before Pearses got a hand on the ball, Shane Pettit was shaping a left-footed kick over the bar for the opening score. Conor Ryan won the kickout and was tripped – deliberately, in the eyes of referee Ian Monaghan – by Dylan Sumner. Sumner picked up a black card, Pearses kicked the next four scores, two of them orange flags from Paul Carey and Lorcán Daly, before David Murray pushed Graham Pettit in the back and Ciarán Lennon scored the resultant penalty.

Pearses continued to lead coming up to half-time, but two Josh Lennon points kept it very tight, 0-9 to 1-5 at the interval.

After the home side shot the first three points of the second half, Ultan Harney’s two-pointer helped to reduce the margin once more. Jack Tumulty then scored a wonderful goal; Clann hit five on the bounce to lead by one; and in the last five minutes, Pearses outscored their hosts by 0-4 to no score, with substitutes Adam McGreal and Jack Nevin both scoring on their first possession, just as David McManus did earlier for Clann.

A brief synopsis of the run of scores perhaps, but the story of the game was in the context, and everything that led up to Pearses taking control during that finale. Certainly if the plan was to sap Clann’s energy, things couldn’t have gone much better for the county champions.

In general, Pádraig Pearses had much more possession so it was Clann who had to run around chasing the game, tracking runners, closing gaps etc. That possession came from control of the kickout battle. David Murray showed for a lot of short kickouts in the first half and with very few turnovers in the middle third of the field, a short kickout win was often just as valuable as a fielder plucking the ball from the sky in between the 45s.

Clann struggled on their kickout as Seán Kelly’s restarts didn’t keep pace with his excellent reflexes and shot-stopping, something that prevented Conor Lohan and Paul Carey getting goals in either half.

Kelly put kickouts over the sideline, he missed his targets and he had low-flying restarts intercepted, including one effort which Hubert Darcy attempted to lob back over Kelly’s head, only for the ball to bounce wide. Meanwhile, Conor Ryan was lord of the skies for Pearses, giving them a significant edge in the aerial battle.

So Pearses had more ball, Clann had to do even more chasing, and perhaps that was why there was so much more in red fuel tanks than in blue ones going into the closing minutes.

It could still have been very different as Ciarán Lennon narrowly pushed a free wide late in the game, at a time when Clann led by a single point. But a narrow lead like that left no margin for error as the Fahey Cup holders ran riot late on, laying to rest the demons they carried home from Ballyleague, while simultaneously encumbering Clann with a few nascent spectres of their own in advance of their own clash with the Murtagh brothers and company next Friday.

Man of the match: Jack Tumulty kicked points off either foot and threw in a fisted score for good measure. He took his goal in style, gave four assists for other Pádraig Pearses scores, and sent a wave of excitement through the crowd every time he took possession. Conor Ryan had a wonderful game and was central to Pearses winning the kickout battle so emphatically, but Tumulty just raised the bar too high.

Scorers - Pádraig Pearses: J Tumulty 1-4; P Carey 0-4 (1 2pt, 1f); L Daly 0-3 (1 2pt); E Colleran 0-2; D Kenny, H Darcy, J Nevin, A McGreal 0-1 each. Clann: C Lennon 1-3 (1-0pen, 0-3f); J Lennon 0-3; U Harney (1 2pt), E Kenny 0-2 each; S Pettit, O O’Flaherty, M Harrington, D McManus 0-1 each.

Clann na nGael: Seán Kelly; Patrick Gavin, David Connaughton, Tom Lennon; Shane Pettit, Kieran Connaughton, Michael Harrington; Oisín Lennon, Dylan Sumner; Emmet Kenny, Ultan Harney, Oisín O’Flaherty; Ciarán Lennon, Graham Pettit, Josh Lennon. Subs used: Alan McManus for O Lennon (18), David McManus for O’Flaherty (39), Oisín O’Flaherty for Harney (55), Fergal Lennon for G Pettit (58).

Pádraig Pearses: Paul Whelan; Gavin Downey, Caelim Keogh, Mark Richardson; Declan Kenny, David Murray, Conor Lohan; Conor Ryan, Ronan Daly; Lorcán Daly, Seán Canning, Jack Tumulty; Eoin Colleran, Hubert Darcy, Paul Carey. Subs used: Adam McGreal for L Daly (55), Jack Nevin for Darcy (55), Charles Nevin for Tumulty (60+2), Eoin McManus for Downey (60+2).

Referee: Ian Monaghan (St. Brigid’s).