Annaduff progressed to the 2022 Smith Monumentals Leitrim Intermediate Football Final with a powerful second half display that completely overwhelmed Allen Gaels at Avant Money Páirc Seán MacDiarmada. 

A brace of goals from Sean Quigley and another goal from Kenny Cox, all coming in the second half, secured a 3-13 to 2-09 victory for Annaduff to seal their place in the final for the third time in the five years since they were relegated from the senior grade.

The half-back trio of Eoin Gill, Hugh Moylan, and Conor Reynolds with their forward runs and link play were especially instrumental in the victory, but it was an all-round excellent team performance from Joe Cox’s troops.

Allen Gaels came into the game as slight favourites based on their much tougher run to the semi-finals which saw them facing all four of the other top five teams, while table-toppers Annaduff, apart from their eight-point defeat to the Drumshanbo side, recorded victories over the bottom three teams in the final table.

From the earlier clash between the sides in the competition, Allen Gaels fielded twelve of the same players, with Kyle Flynn, Emmet Moran, and Shane Walsh all being added to the starting fifteen for the semi-final. 

Annaduff’s starting fifteen only featured nine players who started the earlier meeting against the Drumshanbo outfit. Dean Gill, Frank Shanley, Conor Reynolds, Aaron Duignan, Alan Glancy, and Jack Hughes were the changes to the starting fifteen.

Emmett Moran opened the scoring for the Gaels in the fifth minute of the contest but Annaduff responded with scores from Hugh Moylan on six minutes and a Sean McNabola free in the seventh minute to lead by two points to one.

Corner-forward Ciaran Walsh who had scored 4-07 in the campaign before the semi-final then raised the green flag for the fifth time of the competition on ten minutes. 

Great play from Shane Walsh and Martin Raftery resulted in Caleb Duffy receiving possession, he brushed past the challenge of Annaduff midfielder Dan Bosquette and directed a precision ball into Ciaran Walsh, Walsh fired a low, powerful, diagonal shot that produced a brilliant save from keeper Caolan Quigley, but moments later, the tenacious Walsh regained the ball and at the second attempt rattled the Annaduff net. 

Moylan reduced the arrears to the minimum with his second score of the game just a minute later, only for Duffy to restore Allen Gaels two-point cushion four minutes later.

Back came Annaduff to level the contest on nineteen minutes with scores from Quigley and McNabola, only for Colin Moran to fire over a free on the twenty-minute mark to edge the Drumshanbo men ahead again, as they were up by 1-03 to 0-05.

McNabola equalised with his third point and then Quigley put Annaduff ahead with a point on twenty-five minutes. However, Quigley should have scored a goal instead of the point. Jack Hughes gathered the ball into his chest, passed to Eoin Gill, he hand-passed to Moylan who zoomed in on goal from the right, and Moylan’s perceptive hand-pass over the Gaels defence picked out Quigley just six yards out from goal, but somehow, the Annaduff forward blasted the ball over the bar with the goals at his mercy. 

Allen Gaels finished the half the stronger with points from Ciaran McMorrow and Ciaran Walsh to lead at the interval by 1-05 to 0-07.

Annaduff came out with all guns blazing at the start of the second period and it only took them a minute to find the back of the Gaels net with Kenny Cox scoring the goal. Moylan with the outside of his right boot found McNabola with a pin-point pass, he found Cox, and Cox found the bottom left corner of the net with a low strike, putting Annaduff ahead by 1-07 to 1-05.

Annaduff then fired over the next two points courtesy of Kenny Cox and McNabola from a free to give them a four-point cushion.

Duffy reduced the deficit to three points with a fine score on the forty-minute mark, but Annaduff then responded with their second goal two minutes later.

Eoin Gill and Moylan exchanged passes and Gill picked out Quigley who made no mistake in finding the back of the Gaels net. That crucial goal gave them a six-point advantage, 2-09 to 1-06.

The lead was reduced to five points when Jake Tobin slotted over for the Gaels on forty-five minutes, however, the game was over as a contest just two minutes later when Annaduff added 1-01 without reply to go nine points clear.

McNabola with his fourth point of the match and Sean Quigley with his second goal had the Gaels in a spin.

Quigley went up for a high ball with Gaels keeper Ronan Moran and the Annaduff forward flicked the ball over him to the net to give his side a 3-10 to 1-07 lead with forty-seven minutes on the clock.

The winners then reeled off another three points without reply to increase their advantage to twelve points by the fifty-second minute, as McNabola (his fifth), Alan Glancy, and Sean Duignan all landed scores.

A late burst of scoring from Allen Gaels registering the final 1-02 of the game in stoppage time, reduced the margin of defeat to seven points at the final whistle. Ciaran Walsh with a penalty goal (his second)and a point, and a Sean Lynch point concluded the scoring.

Annaduff will now take on Aughnasheelin in the county final in two weeks’ time, after they defeated Kiltubrid by 1-08 to 0-06 in the other semi-final.