FAI Intermediate Cup final: Glebe North 3 Ringmahon Rangers 2 (AET)
Ringmahon Rangers were left cursing a decision not to award a late penalty as their ambitions of lifting a first senior national trophy in the club’s 73-history perished.
The Cork side missed out on the FAI Intermediate Cup by losing a five-goal extra-time thriller to Glebe North.
A Reece Waldron penalty on the stroke of the first period ending proved decisive as the Cork side couldn’t muster another late equaliser to force a penalty shoot-out.
They thought they’d have a chance to do so when captain Anthony McAlavey was sent tumbling in the box under a challenge by Ciaran Cluskey-Kelly but referee Oliver Coonan killed off the prospect of a last-gasp reprieve.
Substitute Aaron Ahern had earned Ringers an extra-time lifeline by hooking the ball home two minutes into stoppage time to make it 2-2.
Second-half Glebe goals by Ryan O’Shea and Oisin Cole-man had overturned the deficit they faced at the interval through Evan Galvin’s first-minute breakthrough.
“It was a stonewall penalty,” fumed Rangers boss Aidan Foley afterwards.
“Anthony’s reaction said it all and that’s hard to take for the players who’ve put so much work into this. Maybe the early goal was our downfall. It’s not our style to be hanging on to a lead that long. My words to the players don’t mean much straight after the game but I told them how proud we are of them. This team will come again.”
Drogheda United’s Weavers Park is far from glamorous but while it represented a veritable home fixture for Balbriggan-based Glebe, it was fans in the red-and-black-dominated main stand — with boxer Spike O’Sullivan among the masses — who were first to find their voice. Just 55 seconds were clocked when
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