Danske Bank Gerry Brown Cup final
St Aidan’s, Cootehill 5-13 Virginia College, Cavan 1-6
A COMMANDING presence around the middle third from captain Charlie Gallagher and Braiden McCarney was the foundation stone for St Aidan’s comfortably winning this Cavan derby yesterday in Kingspan Breifne.
They also got the perfect start to the game with a goal from player-of the-match Brannan McCaul in the second minute.
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McCaul scored their second goal to lead by 2-7 to 0-4 at the break, Virginia College’s points equally divided between Frankie Jackson and Peadar Brennan.
McCaul then completed his hat-trick on the re-start, only for Virginia to respond with a good move that saw Hugo Morgan find the net.
However, straight from the kick-out, midfielder Braiden McCarney drove through the centre to score St Aidan’s fourth goal.
Close to the end there was a foul on Jamie Maguire and McCaul slotted the penalty to bring his personal tally to 4-2 for the day.
While McCaul had an outstanding game, he fed off the problems created by Arnas Metlovas on the edge of the square and later around the middle of the field.
Virginia simply couldn’t reproduce the form that had brought them through to the decider, with Callum Gallagher and Bobby Cole probably their best players on a day that simply belonged to Cootehill.
