All-Ireland Club SHC: Slaughtneil performance ‘nowhere near the levels we expected’ – Paul McCormack

Slaughtneil cruised past St John’s in the Ulster final at the end of November, but they faced a significantly more robust examination from Loughrea, who raced into a 0-3 to 0-0 lead early on and led 1-9 to 0-10 at the break after Anthony Burns’ goal.

But the Ulster champions’ hopes of staging a second-half fightback were crushed when Vince Morgan’s fine goal six minutes after the restart left a seven-point gap between the sides.

“We weren’t overly concerned at half-time,” added former Armagh dual player McCormack.

“Yes, we were looking to up the gears a bit. We just didn’t get the start to roar into the game and then the second goal was a killer blow.”

Having replaced Michael McShane at the helm, McCormack led Slaughtneil to last year’s All-Ireland’s semi-final, where they lost to Cork and Munster champions Sarsfields by a point in an agonising finish.

In contrast, Loughrea extinguished the Slaughtneil challenge long before their influential midfielder Cullen Killeen was sent off in injury time for what referee Johnny Murphy deemed a strike on Brendan Rogers.

“They seemed to get points at ease,” observed McCormack.

“The game stretched and all of a sudden it turned into a three-point game and a six or seven-point game, and then we were really chasing the game.

“With their experience and craft, they’re a really decent team, they punished us for all our small mistakes. The accumulation just built up and the game was probably gone in the past seven or eight minutes.”