Saval’s underdog story

By Shaun Casey

TO the outside world, Saval were simply going to make up the numbers in the 1995 Down Intermediate Championship final. Despite winning the competition just seven years previous, with a host of experienced heads remaining, Saval were massive underdogs.

Newry Bosco were expected to coast through and claim the crown. Championship titles aren’t handed out, however. They are earned. Thirty years ago, it was Saval who put in the hard yards to sit on that throne.

Bosco competed in Division Two of the league that year and proudly sat at the top of the pile after experiencing an unbeaten run. Saval, on the other hand, were midtable in Division Three and considered no-hopers.

“We were seventh in Division Three and Bosco were top of Division Two, unbeaten in league and championship that year, so we were 17 places behind them in the league. We were massive underdogs,” recalled Saval captain Gerry Turley.

“But funnily enough, we’d won it in 1989, and we were in the second division at that time and Liatroim were in the third division, and they were unbeaten in league and championship, and we beat them.

“We played Kilcoo in the semi-final that year and Atticall and Bosco drew in the other semi-final beforehand, it was a double-header in Rostrevor. They stayed to see who won our game, and after eight minutes we were 2-2 to no score down.

“All the Bosco and Atticall boys left because they assumed Kilcoo were going to win. At half time it was 2-6 to 0-6 and we came out in the second half and we wiped the floor with them, and nobody could believe we got to the final.”

A positional swap helped smooth matters.

“Big Barney McEvoy was playing full-forward and Jerome Johnston was centre-forward (for Kilcoo). Eamon McCarthy was centre half-back and Gavin Quinn was full-back, and we just switched those two men after the goal.

“Eamon was a big rough and ignorant boy so he was fit for McEvoy and Gavin Quinn was only a minor at the time, but he was playing out of his skin, and he was able to curtail Jerome Johnston so that was their main attack wiped out.

“They got 2-2 in the first eight minutes, but they never really recovered from that because we started tagging on points until half time and then in the second half, Seamie Sands was full-forward, and he got three goals in the second half.”

With Saval coming in under the radar, the pressure was off. Bosco’s name had all but been written on the cup beforehand and with expectations low, Saval could compete in the contest without the weight of the world on their shoulders.

“There was no pressure on us,” recalled Turley, who takes the reserve team in Saval.

“We warmed up at Saval that morning and we went over to the field, and we thought we’d loads of time, but we hadn’t, we just went onto the field in Drumgath and had one run across the pitch.

“It wasn’t like nowadays where there are cones and you run up and down for an hour. We just had one run and then they called the captains and before we even knew it the game just started, it all happened that quick.

“We were all very relaxed because we weren’t really expected to do anything. Bosco’s had 17 wides but with every one of them, they were shooting under pressure because we were fit, we’d no outstanding players but we’d a great team spirit and great work-rate.

“I’ve watched the video numerous times, and they were shooting under pressure, there was no easy tap-overs for them. Even the scores they got were hard earned scores and if we had one wide that was the height of it.

“Big Seamie (Sands) took the frees and he hit five out of five so everything went for us but I would say our work-rate won it for us, even though they had better footballers, they had a couple of Down u-21s at the time.

“They had Brian Irwin, Marty Lynch and those boys were all great players, Sean Casey, Malachy McMurray, he was playing for Down at the time. They were flying but they were under pressure the whole time.”

The result hung in the balance and when the game entered the final few minutes, Bosco had their noses ahead, but Saval weren’t for lying down and they dragged themselves over the line in the final minutes.

“It went right to the wire, and they were devastated because they were a far better team and playing better football. The corner-back came out for a high ball in the square, and it bounced in front of him, went over his head, and Barry McCoy caught it and put it in the top corner.

“I had a brother that came on, Colm, he was only 16 at the time. He came on for big Seamie and the first ball played into him, he was out in front, won it and turned round and kicked it over the bar and that left it a draw.

“We were on the next attack and one of the boys got brought down. Barry McCoy kicked the winner from a free-kick and that was his first kick of the day because big Seamie had taken the other ones and put them all over.”

All the pressure fell on McCoy’s shoulders. With Sands off the field, it was up to McCoy to nail the final free and lead his side to glory. It wasn’t a hard free, as Turley admits, but it still needed to be kicked.

“Big Seamie was in nets the year before, and then he came out into full-forward. He couldn’t run but he had great feet. He took the 50s and everything, he was scoring 50s for Saval as a goalkeeper before that was a thing.

“In training, Barry would put ten out of ten of them over but with the last kick of the game in a championship final and it’s your first dead ball strike. He put it straight over, but it was a nice one for him.

“I just threw my hands up into the air and there was about four of the boys all hanging off me, it was just unbelievable. I had no speech, or nothing done because I didn’t want to jinx it but as it come, I just spurted out a few words.

“One of the boys owned a tarmac company and his lorry was there to take us back over to the club and we just had the club finished that year, so this was the first party in it, it was going to be the first, win, lose or draw, but it made it sweeter that we won.”

Saval would have to wait a full 27 years before they experienced that feeling again. In 2022, led by All-Star winner Danny Hughes, they got their hands on the WJ Farrell cup, for just the third time in their history.

Turley was an interested onlooker by then and witnessed his son Brendan follow in his footsteps.

“I had a son playing on that team, so it was great,” Turley said, reflecting on their 2022 championship triumph.

“They played Rostrevor and Rostrevor got a goal in the first attack, and they were flying but once Saval settled down, there was about eight Saval men that had their game of the season in the final.

“Saval aren’t a dirty team, they were never dirty, if you went back through the history there’d hardly be a red card, but they were physical, and they were hitting hard and they were getting stuck in.

“After about 40 minutes, Rostrevor didn’t want to know, and the game was over with about 15 minutes to go.”