Ultan's celebrate

For about 10 minutes on Sunday, the IFC final between parish rivals St Ultan"s and Cortown promised to be a thrilling affair. Scores came with regular frequency and it threatened to be a close run thing. However, as soon as Daryl McLoughlin produced a brilliant finish after a clever flick by Cian Rennicks it put St Ultan"s in the driving seat and left Cortown playing catch-up. That type of game didn"t make it a pleasant experience. Play became very fractious and referee Marcus Quinn would have required eyes in the back of his head to keep up with all the off-the-ball incidents. There were very few flowing passages of football after the opening quarter, but by full-time, St Ultan"s didn"t really care, and rightly so. They are the intermediate football champions. And as if to make the victory all the more sweeter they can also claim parish bragging rights. The expected brother against brother clash materialised when Tomas Coyne was selected to start for St Ultan"s in a change from the listed team in the programme and his brother David Coyne lined out at corner-back for Cortown. For a moment there was a chance the pair could end up marking each other, but Tomas moved into a corner-back position as St Ultan"s re-shuffled their pack. David stayed put, for a short while at least. David struggled in an under pressure Cortown full-back line and was called ashore after 21 minutes. Neither brother got a chance to tackle the other, but history was made. For the first time since Tim and Jim Ryan opposed each other in the 1962 SFC between Trim and Ballinlough, brothers faced each other in a major final. The rumours that Galway United goalkeeper Gary Rogers would start for St Ultan"s proved wide of the mark, but in the 56th minute the talented player did make an appearance when he replaced Kevin Galligan. And with seven minutes of injury-time, the player who featured on the successful Meath junior team in 2003, had plenty of time to sample the atmosphere. Overall it was a magnificent day for St Ultan"s and their supporters and also for the followers of Kilmessan and Kildalkey who saw their sides advance to the SHC final with wins over Dunboyne and defending champions Kiltale respectively. While there were many positives about the day, there were a few negatives. None more so than the disastrous attempts at organising the car park at the old swimming pool end of Pairc Tailteann. After the shocking attempts at parking on the previous Sunday for the SFC semi-final between Summerhill and Wolfe Tones and JFC final between Moynalvey and Ratoath, the Co Committee adopted a more 'structured" approach for last Sunday. Or at least they attempted to. Any visitor to the car park prior to last Sunday"s games could have been forgiven for confusing the scene with the old cartoon, the Wacky Races only without Dick Dastardly, Muttley and Penelope Pitstop. The first instruction belted out by the stewards - 'We are not using the parking lines today' - what kind of logic went into that decision? Surely the car park has been lined out to ensure optimum use of the available space? Not really, or so it appears - Meath GAA were going to stray outside the lines. Spectators arrived and parked in a seemingly orderly fashion, but were then met by a steward who asked them to return to their vehicle and move it to another position. It was chaos at times and even more baffling, a large section at the bottom of the car park was cordened off! The message for supporters this Sunday - you have been warned - 'Stay outside the lines.'