10 minutes in and Loreto, Coleraine look home and dry.
1-4 without reply and it could have been more. Rathmore of Belfast are in serious bother with a better balanced Derry side dominating this Irish News Ulster schools under-13.5 final.
If only the crowd at the Bellaghy GAA grounds in south Derry knew what was going to happen next.
Michael Morgan didn’t have them waiting long. The Glenavy youngster had been spoken about in the lead up to the game. A fella ‘with an eye for a goal,’ according to his Rathmore manager.
That’s one way of putting it.
This is a young fella who hit no less than nine goals in their semi-final victory that dragged them along to this stage. Performances like that are often dubbed ‘once-in-a-lifetime’ days out. This fella is different gravy and it was ten minutes in when he began cutting shapes here.
He scored his first, a soccer-type goal after slaloming his way through from 30 yards before finished calmly from the ground. Rathmore are in business.
Morgan is on fire.
U14 football at its best @LCCGAA 6-16 @rathmoretweets 10-4… I think … Michael Morgan with 7-1 for Rathmore inc three penalties … extra time to follow pic.twitter.com/xdVByR2N8v
— Michael McMullan (@malmcmullan) May 16, 2019
You’d have an idea before even asking that this is a fella who’s represented Northern Ireland soccer teams recently. You’d know well that some of the best soccer clubs have been sniffing around too.
But this lad has hands as well.
Loreto are the better team and that they remain but Morgan keeps piling on the pressure for Rathmore. Both teams are foot to the floor, hard at it with the sole intention of scoring more than the other. It’s total Gaelic football.
“It was a highly enjoyable game, underage football played as it should. Players just played for the next ball and that’s how young players should be allowed to play,” Michael McMullan of the Derry Post who was reporting at the game, told us.
Hear hear.
The scores kept coming, the attacking football kept on flowing. At half-time they were close, at full-time the scoreline read Loreto 6-16 Rathmore 10-4.
Morgan had hit 7-1 himself but there was nothing selfish about it. He passed when the pass was on, his Rathmore teammates knew what do.
There was even more of to come in extra-time. With Rathmore feeding their electric, direct and powerful forward, he managed to hit two more goals to finish his day with a heavenly 9-1 to his name.
Renowned Derry photographer Mary K Burke was at the game and she captured some brilliant action shots.
[caption id="attachment_201224" align="alignnone" width="1024"]Photo by Mary K Burke
Loreto won out 10-19 (49) to 13-8 (47) in the end. Morgan somehow was on the losing team despite racking up 28 points but very soul in Bellaghy was a winner that day. So was Gaelic football.
If anyone was looking for an advertisement for underage football then today’s Irish News Cup Final was just the ticket. Loreto beat Rathmore 10-19 to 13-8 AET. Young lads just going flat to the mat with nothing else mattering only the next ball. 👏👏 to all involved pic.twitter.com/jjlsjCyf3t
— Michael McMullan (@malmcmullan) May 16, 2019
Morgan is something special.
