In defiance of elements that seemed, for much of the day, determined to make the host town part of the Irish Sea, the two outstanding teams in shinty served up a feast of goals, matching the all time record for a Macaulay Cup final that has stood for six decades.
A four goal burst in 18 second half minutes from Kyles forward Roddy MacDonald ultimately made the difference, while the hat-trick registered by Newtonmore’s Glen Mackintosh provided no sort of consolation as the already ailing bid by the Premiership champions of the past seven seasons to claim the Grand Slam of trophies that has narrowly eluded on several occasions during that run, had ended.
In a competition played regionally up to the final in order to ensure a North v South decider there was revenge, too, for Kyles whose own Grand Slam bid ended at Newtonmore last month when, on successive weekends, they were beaten in a Camanachd Cup tie and also lost their unbeaten league record to the reigning champions.
“We didn’t do ourselves justice in the Scottish Cup game or even the Premier League game up in Newtonmore. We knew we played a hell of a lot better so we had to get the monkey off our back a wee bit and show up today,” said their manager James Perlich.
On a day of poor defending PJ Mackintosh, the Newtonmore manager, was appalled by the way his team had been dismantled.
“If you’d asked me in the last two or three weeks if I’d have taken four goals in a Macaulay Cup final I’d have grabbed it with both hands,” he said.
“Collectively today, though, we weren’t good enough and we defended terribly.”
Mackintosh admitted that the loss to injury in midweek of their captain and defensive bulwark Rory Kennedy had been a blow, but said that could not be used as an excuse and he challenged his men to rouse themselves ahead of next weekend’s Camanachd Cup semi-final against lower division Skye.
“If the boys can’t get going and get up for Scottish Cup semi-finals and maybe a final they don’t deserve to be there,” he said.
The scale of the defeat was more surprising than the loss itself, but Perlich reckoned he had seen his men turn a corner during the previous weekend’s 7-0 Premiership thrashing of Glenurquhart when he was particularly pleased with the way they had concentrated on maintaining their teamwork after turning 3-0 up, to rattle in another four goals.
They improved on that yesterday with five second half goals after it looked as if they might have missed their chance to take control of the game when they dominated territorially with the wind at their back in the first half, but turned level at 2-2, Colin MacDonald’s brace cancelled out by Glen Mackintosh’s first and an exceptional strike from Fraser Mackintosh just ahead of the break.
A Sandy Mackenzie goal within 30 seconds of the re-start nudged Kyles back in front and just after the hour mark Roddy MacDonald began his decisive spree, albeit it was Glen Mackintosh who scored the 79th minute goal that took the overall tally to 11, matching that in the 1957 final when Oban Camanachd beat Inverness 8-3.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here