As the scorer of a hat-trick in football’s 1974 League Cup final who ended up being on the wrong side of a hiding, ex-Hibs striker Joe Harper is among the very few men who could empathise with Newtonmore’s Glen Mackintosh as the scorer of three goals who has ended up on the losing side in a major cup final.
Yet perhaps even stranger than the Newtonmore full forward’s experience on Saturday was that of Kyles’ Roddy MacDonald who produced a decisive four-goal burst in 18 mid-second half minutes and did not pick up the man of the match award.
In many ways those statistics fitted a day that defied all sorts of conventional wisdom since logic surely suggested that the relentless torrents which were not what the champions of summer shinty had in mind when they persuaded the sport to make that change, would favour defenders with the ball likely to stick in saturated turf.
To the great credit of the ground staff, it was the more creative players who enjoyed themselves most, however, whereas a veil should be drawn over the efforts of both goalkeepers, so much so that a veil might have proven as effective a barrier as a 60-year-old Macaulay Cup final record was equalled with the 11 goals matching the tally when Oban Camanachd beat Inverness 8-3 in 1957.
Both Newtonmore’s Norman Campbell, a converted international outfield player and Kyles’ John Whyte are much better stoppers than this evidence suggested, but among their errors and the general poor defending, there were some spectacular goals, a supreme strike by Fraser Mackintosh levelling the scores for a second time just before half-time and the second of Roddy MacDonald’s strikes from an acute angle to the right of goal, the picks of the respective bunches.
MacDonald had actually been relatively quiet for the first hour of the match, well policed by Andy Mackintosh and it was no coincidence that the first of his goals came almost immediately after his marker went off injured, his forehead having collided wholly accidentally with the forward’s vigorously swung stick, but once he found some space he was devastating. “It was a team performance and I thought the whole team was fantastic,” he said, genuinely indicating that he was not the least bit bothered that all action midfielder Thomas Whyte had got the nod for the individual award.
“It’s nice to get the goals, but it’s about bringing that trophy home to Tighnabruich.”
Newtonmore, having won the MacTavish Cup, exclusively played among the Northern clubs; and Kyles the Celtic Society Cup –contested among those south of the Highland line – a victory which made up for crucial defeats when the two met in the Camanachd (Scottish) Cup and the Premiership last month, looks to have set Kyles up for the title race.
“This should give us confidence for the rest of the season,” MacDonald agreed. “We were a wee bit disappointed with the way we played, especially in the Scottish Cup game against Newtonmore. They out-played us that day, but we’ve more than made up for that today.”
While Newtonmore now have to regroup ahead of next weekend’s Camanachd Cup semi-final against Skye, James Perlich, the Kyles manager, immediately set his sights on the Premiership race that his men are leading with five matches remaining.
“The league’s the one I want,” he said. “The Camanachd Cup has the prestige, the one that teams dream of winning, but for me it’s about being the best. I think the winner of the league shows who’s that.”
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