Ballina Stephenites got past Breaffy at the second time of asking in this evening’s replayed senior club championship quarter-final at McHale Park. Ballina won out by a single point, 1-7 to 0-9, and they now join defending champions Ballintubber as well as Knockmore and Castlebar Mitchels in the semi-finals. The draw for the penultimate round is due to be held on Monday week (September 12th) but the semis won’t be played until the first weekend in October.

Points from Colm Lyons, Alan Durcan (free) and Peter Dravins sent Breaffy into an early three-point lead in this evening’s game and they were still two points to the good when Ballina’s Liam Brady got the game’s only goal shortly before half-time. The Stephenites led by one at the break but then a full fifteen minutes elapsed in the second half before two points in quick succession put Breaffy back in the driving seat. The sides then traded points and with full time approaching it looked as if Breaffy had done enough to advance. But then Ballina got two injury time points (the first from a free) to nick the tie by the minimum margin.

In the day’s other match, Kiltane got the better of Charlestown in their senior championship relegation play-off, where they won by 3-8 to 0-13. The 2009 Moclair Cup winners looked to be well in control of this match at half-time, when they led by 0-8 to 0-4, but then the Erris lads hit them with three goals in as many minutes just after the restart and Kiltane then remained in control from there ’till the end. Charlestown now face a do-or-die play-off against Tourmakeady, with the losers dropping down to Intermediate next year.

My thanks to the excellent Mayo GAA Twitter service for all the blow-by-blow details on the above matches.