Naomh Conaill beat Gowna at the death

Naomh Conaill 2-08 Gowna 1-10

Donegal champions Naomh Conaill produced a classic Ulster SFC club championship smash-and-grab as they hit the net with practically the last kick of the game to snatch the win here over a Gowna team who will be wondering how they ended up empty-handed.

The Donegal men, who have played in the last seven county finals and won four of the last five, were hot favourites coming into this match, despite a young Gowna side retaining their county title with a 17-point final win over Kingscourt Stars.

And Naomh Conaill were the better side in the first half but it wasn't until they nabbed a crucial injury-time goal that the scoreboard reflected their superiority.

A ball broke in front of the Gowna goals, keeper Ronan Bannon advanced but couldn’t get enough on it and veteran Leo McLoone found the empty net with a perfectly-placed lob.

That score made it 1-05 to 0-04 at the interval. Up to that point, while there wasn’t much between them. The Donegal side were superior, squeezing Gowna’s kick-out and forcing the Breffnimen to live off scraps.

Indeed, while Gowna had one straightforward free converted by Oisin Pierson, their other three first-half points from Ryan Donohoe, Mark McKeever and Conor Casey (mark) were all of a high quality which probably told its own story; the Cavan champions were relying on low-percentage strikes to keep them in touch.

Yet in the second half, Gowna turned the game on its head. They held their opponents scoreless for the first 18 minutes and played some clever attacking football themselves; deep into injury time, they led by two points and looked to have done enough to grab what would have been only a second first-round win for a Cavan team in this competition since 2009.

But