Dermot McNicholl celebrates with Adrian McGuckin and Paul Hughes

St Pat's Maghera 1-9 1-4 St Mary's Magherafelt

St Patrick's Maghera produced a tremendous second half performance to crush St Mary's Magherafelt's hopes of claiming a first Bank of Ireland MacRory Cup title.

The Magherafelt school seemed set to break their duck when they led 1-4 to 0-2 at the interval.

However, amazingly St Mary's failed to score in the second half with Maghera taking complete control to claim their 12th MacRory success.

St Mary's second half collapse was truly baffling.

They had comfortably been the more accomplished outfit in the opening period against a strangely subdued Maghera.

St Pat's captain Gerard O'Kane's re-appearance early in the second half after he had been stretchered off in the first period undoubtedly boosted Maghera morale yet it didn't fully explain Magherafelt's loss of momentum.

Winning Maghera captain Gerard O'Kane

Both sides exhibited nerves in the opening moments and it took seven minutes for the first score to arrive with Michael McCann pointing for Maghera.

After the opening quarter, the score was 0-2 each with McCann and St Mary's Colin Devlin having notched the opening four points from placed balls.

In the 16th minute, Devlin squandered a great chance to hit the opening goal of the game when his tame penalty was saved by Maghera goalkeeper Eoin McNicholl.

The spot-kick had been awarded after McNicholl had felled Magherafelt full-forward Murtagh O'Brien.

However, Magherafelt recovered from the miss to hit the net within minutes.

Paul Kielt found Joe O'Kane with a clever pass and the half-forward picked his spot gloriously with a low shot from the tight angle past McNicholl.

With the Magherafelt defence comfortably breaking up Maghera attacks, St Mary's were able to notch two further scores in the second quarter through Conor Scullion and Paul Kielt.

"We were getting pushed around physically in the first half Dermot McNicholl

Kielt's score was a glorious effort with the outside of his right boot.

Things seemed to have moved decisively in Magherafelt's favour a minute before the break when Maghera skipper Gerard O'Kane was forced to leave the field after a cynical challenge by Stephen Crozier.

The Magherafelt player played picked up a yellow card for the challenge and was perhaps fortunate not to have seen red.

A la Armagh in last year's All-Ireland's final, Maghera kept Magherafelt waiting at the start of the second half.

Magherafelt were out on the pitch for a full five minutes before a charged-up Maghera side re-appeared - no doubt after hearing some harsh words from manager Dermot McNicholl.

Within nine minutes of the re-start, Maghera had hit five points without replay to level the contest.

"Our name was on the cup Dermot McNicholl

Substitute Michael Friel hit an immediate point seconds after the break and within eight minutes, Mark Lynch's score had squared the contest.

Captain O'Kane, who was given oxygen at the break, then played a key role in Maghera's crucial goal with Friel diverting the skipper's lob past Magherafelt goalkeeper Ryan Kidd.

One would have expected Magherafelt to have a spell of supremacy in the second period but it never materialised.

Jonathan Nelson and Brendan Mullan added further Maghera points in the final quarter against a visibly wilting Magherafelt side.

Teams
St Pat's Maghera: Eoin McNicholl, Dermot O'Hagan, Joe Keenan, Paul Donnelly, Gavin Scullion, Gerard O'Kane (capt), Philip O'Connell, Jonathan Bradley, Liam Hinphey, John Paul Higgins, Jonathan Nelson, Mark Lynch, Charlie Kielt, Michael McCann, Brendan Mullan.

St Mary's Magherafelt: Ryan Kidd, Mark Collins, Colm McElroy, Kevin Bradley, Michael McIver, Stephen Crozier, Cathal Doyle, John O'Boyle, Ciaran McCallion, Paul Kielt, Ruairi Murray (capt), Joe O'Kane, Colin Devlin, Murtagh O'Brien.

Referee: Mickey Convery.