Letterkenny and Monaghan produced a Gordon West Final full of passion and drama on Saturday afternoon at the Kingspan Stadium.
Both teams spent the first quarter testing defences before in the 25th minute, Monaghan No 8, Christopher Brady crashed over, close to the posts, after strong work by the pack. Gareth Graham converted to give Monaghan a 7 – 0 lead.
A Graham penalty goal on 32 minutes moved Monaghan up to 10 – 0 and a deserved half time lead.
Letterkenny won a penalty, converted by Ben Galbraith, to reduce the gap to 10 – 3 after 59 minutes.
Letterkenny threw everything at a very stout Monaghan defence and it seemed the game was going Monaghan’s way. A penalty was kicked into Monaghan’s corner on the right and from the resulting lineout maul, Keenan Barrett was driven over. With the score 10 – 8 and 78 minutes on the clock Galbraith’s conversion hit the post and grazed the wrong side of the bar.
Letterkenny launched one last attack and when it seemed it had petered out the ball was passed back to Peter Scott, who dropped the winning goal.
With that the final whistle was blown and Letterkenny had claimed the Gordon West Cup 11 – 10.
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