Palatine hold on to land Carlow football title

Palatine 2-08 Tinryland 2-06

Palatine are the Carlow senior football champions as they survived a scare to seal a two-point success over Tinryland at Netwatch Cullen Park.

The victors did it the hard way after they looked to be cruising at one stage as a score-filled final quarter for the opposition atoned for a drab enough opening 45 minutes.

At the start, Tinryland predictably opted for slow build-up spraying passes around the pitch and generally playing keep ball.

They looked to be settling best when Maurice Lawler found the posts from an awkward angle. Palatine hit back and Shane O'Neill equalised. Palatine then snaffled the kick-out and Jamie Kenny found the net from close range to take the ascendancy.

Tinryland looked as if they had absorbed the shock of conceding an early goal when Diarmaid Walshe converted a free and landed a point from play. The game was turned on its head towards the end of the second quarter when Palatine broke quickly for another three-pointer.

Bryan McMahon made ground and was tripped in the act of shooting. Tomas Sheehan converted the resultant penalty to give his side a 2-04 to 0-03 interval lead.

Further Palatine points after the restart from Ciaran Moran and Conor Crowley pushed thm into what seemed like an unassailable advantage.

But that wasn't the end of the story.

They were firstly undone when they failed to deal with a Walshe 45 and the ball ended up in the back of the net. They also lost David Reid to a straight red card and suddenly the eventual winners looked vulnerable.

That was even more so when Cormac O’Brien added a Tinryland point and then Walsh reduced the margin to three with another from play, putting the outcome in doubt.

Shane O’Neill’s point was needed for Palatine but once again