Kilcoo weather slow start to out-last Crosserlough in Ulster quarter-final

Kilcoo (Down) 0-15 Crosserlough (Cavan) 1-10

Down champions Kilcoo marched on to the Ulster semi-final after coming through a stern examination from Cavan's Crosserlough in this fiercely-contested clash in Newry.

Crosserlough were aggrieved to pick up three black cards over the course of the hour and, in the closing stages, their star forward James Smith was mistakenly shown a yellow and then a red card and dismissed by referee Barry Cassidy, despite not having been shown a yellow earlier in the contest.

Kilcoo, though, again showed their nous and their nerve in tight games; they used the ball well, Paul Devlin nailed his frees and was dangerous from play, full-back Ryan McEvoy was immense and sub Conor Laverty steered the ship home with ain influential cameo off the bench.

The Cavan champions came into this one hoping to improve the county’s dismal record in the competition. Aside from Cavan Gaels, who beat the Antrim and Fermanagh champions to reach the final in 2017, no Cavan club had won a match in this competition since 2008 – and, in fact, no team other than the Gaels had picked up a win since Gowna defeated Clontibret 22 years ago.

Kilcoo, for their part, were hot favourites and understandably so. They won the county final by 1-10 to 0-4 against Burren to seal a 12th Down senior title in 13 years and have added two Ulster titles and an All-Ireland in that timeframe to establish themselves as one of the modern-day giants of Ulster club football.

Kilcoo led by a point, 0-8 to 1-4, at the end of a first half in which Crosserlough competed strongly – but picked up two black cards, one for Oran Rehill in the 16th minute and the other for Kieran Smith in injury time, both of which the away side were annoyed over.

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