McElligott stars as New York make history at Croke Park

Shay McElligott helped himself to half a dozen points as New York made a little piece of All-Ireland JFC history at Croke Park with back-to-back title successes.

In their third straight final since the competition was reconstituted in 2022, New York relied on a burst of scoring midway through the second-half to secure their latest win.

Trailing by a point early in the second-half, they reeled off seven points to London’s solitary score between the 34th and 50th minutes to leave the All-Britain champions in their slipstream.

New York, who had Ryan Corrigan and Danny Corridan from their Tailteann Cup senior panel involved, were aided by the 41st minute dismissal of London midfielder Ryan O’Connell.

London, chasing a first title since 1986, refused to throw in the towel despite trailing by five points after that torrent of New York scoring.

Ryan Kearney had a big influence when he came on, kicking two points for London and setting up another as they reduced the deficit to the minimum.

They almost stole a dramatic 60th minute winning goal when Kearney dropped a ball in from a free which Thomas Waters got a boot to but it was cleared off the New York goal line.

New York ultimately held on and aside from the excellent McElligott, who converted two frees, two marks and two from play, were grateful to Brian Coughlan, who kicked the winner in last year’s final, for his efforts across the weekend.

Coughlan added a point to the three he kicked in Friday evening’s semi-final defeat of Warwickshire at the GAA’s National Games Development Centre in Abbottstown.

Midfielder Gearoid Kennedy struck two points this time and was influential too.

Both sides were unchanged from their Friday evening wins, New York beating All-Britain finalists Warwickshire 0-11 to 0-08 less than 48 hours earlier and London taking care of USGAA 1-08 to 0-10.

Chasing a repeat of last year’s final success, when they beat Kilkenny by a point, New York started brightly and won the opening quarter by 0-04 to 0-01.

McElligott was one of nine players retained in the lineup from last year’s final win and struck three first-half points this time for New York.

One of those came from an advanced mark following a terrific long ball in from Kennedy who also pinched the game’s opening score.

London came alive in the second quarter and outscored New York 0-05 to 0-02 in the second quarter to tie it up at the interval, 0-06 apiece.

Noel Maher scored four of those London points from placed balls as they ran hard at the New York defence and were rewarded with a series of frees.

Rhys Lennon put London ahead shortly after the restart but with seven of the next eight points going New York’s way, the game swung decisively.

McElligott was terrific in this period as was Thomas Shalvey who struck two points. Coughlan drew the foul for London midfielder O’Connell’s second yellow card with just under 20 minutes to go and suddenly the men in green had a mountain to climb.

They almost scaled it too, reeling off the last four points of the game but they left themselves just too much to do.

New York: Ryan Corrigan; Peter Cronin, Paidi Mathers, Shane Doheny; Ian Kavanagh, Dylan Curran, Aaron Traynor; Colm Shalvey (0-01), Gearoid Kennedy (0-02); Aidan Lawlor, Danny Corridan, Thomas Shalvey (0-02); Emmet Loughran (0-01), Brian Coughlan (0-01), Shay McElligott (0-06, 0-02f, 0-02m).

Subs: Lorcan Kennedy for C Shalvey 41, Ciaran O’Connor for Loughran 56.

London: Gavin McEvoy; Eoghan Reilly, Patrick O’Reilly, Donncha Byrne; Matthew Tierney; Ryan McCready, Aidan McGarvey (0-01), Darragh Griffin; Ryan O’Connell, Noel Maher (0-04, 0-04f); Rhys Lennon (0-01), Ryan Forde, Matthew Joyce; Alfie McNulty, Sean Hickey (0-04).

Subs: Thomas Waters for McNulty h/t, Ryan Kearney (0-02) for Joyce 45, Brendan Rice for Byrne 45, Darren Lynch for Maher 50, Ciaran Houlihan for McGarvey 61.

Referee: Conor Dourneen (Cavan).