Keating holds nerve to hand Cuala first Leinster title

Cuala (Dublin) 1-14 Ardee St Mary's (Louth) 2-10

Veteran Luke Keating struck the stoppage time match winning point as Dublin's Cuala clinched a dramatic first ever AIB Leinster club SFC title.

In the process, the Dalkey outfit made a big piece of provincial championship history as the first ever club to win both Leinster senior football and hurling titles.

Cuala's hurlers famously won back-to back Leinster titles in 2016 and 2017, with Dublin football star Con O'Callaghan involved in both breakthrough groups.

They did it the hard way this time and coughed up what was at one stage in the first-half a nine-point lead to find themselves on level terms three times late on against a rallying Ardee.

Ardee goals in the 49th and 50th minutes from substitute Ryan Rooney, who finished with 1-02, and Sean Callaghan, hauled them right back and suggested they might become the first ever Louth team to lift the title.

Crucially, they never led in the game and 35-year-old father of two Keating, an All-Ireland U-20 medal winner with Dublin way back in 2010, seized when Michael Fitzsimons was fouled to clip over the winner in the 62nd minute.

Cuala will head on now to the All-Ireland series and a semi-final against the Connacht champions - either Coolera/Strandhill (Sligo) or Padraig Pearses (Roscommon) - on the first weekend of January.

There must have been a huge sense of deja vu for Mary's having endured a similar nightmare first-half against Dublin opposition in the same competition last year.

They hosted Kilmacud Crokes at the semi-final stage in 2023 and the Dublin champions led by 1-10 to 0-3 at half-time in that encounter.

This year's Dublin champions left Ardee with that same sinking feeling as Cuala scored the first 1-06 of the game and