Carrickmore hero McGarrity reflects on his dramatic winner

COMETH the hour, cometh the man. Carrickmore forward Lorcan McGarrity showed nerves of steel with a sensational late winner against Dromore in O’Neill’s Healy Park on Friday night, propelling his side into the Senior Championship quarter-finals in the most dramatic of circumstances.

Watching on from the stands, it looked like we were all set for a replay with the scoreboard reading 0-10 apiece deep into injury time, but Carrickmore weren’t content to pass the ball around the middle and see out the remaining 60 seconds, the ball finding its way to McGarrity, who had only one thing on his mind – boom, and Carrickmore had done it, they had completed a hugely memorable comeback that saw them outscore their opponents by 0-6 to 0-1 in the final 20 minutes of action.

Speaking after the game, Lorcan took us through his dramatic late intervention.

“I missed 1-2 in the first-half and a few other boys had hit wides. I saw Danny and thought he was going to kick it off the left because he’s been firing them over all year. I was happy enough he gave me the ball instead, and I had a go and we got the one-point win.”

Carrickmore had trailed by 0-8 to 0-5 at the break but McGarrity says they were determined to avoid a repeat of last year’s first-round, where they failed to put up much of a showing against Edendork. This time around, it had to be different.

“I missed 1-2 in the first-half and kicked a lot of silly ball away. The message at half-time was that we were still there. We were three points down against a very organised Dromore team and it was just about being patient and thankfully a few boys popped up with scores.

“We were probably looking at last year as well, we went out with a bit of a whimper against Edendork.

“We were hoping to put that right so we’re happy enough.”