Donegal Town's Aaron McCrea helps Scoil Uí Conaill to Dublin IFC title win

Former Donegal county minor and Four Masters player Aaron McCrea played a pivotal role tonight in helping his side Scoil Uí Conaill clinch the Dublin intermediate football championship in Parnell Park on a scoreline of 0-14 to 0-13 after extra-time.

The ex-Donegal Town player started at right-half back as he saw his Clontarf-based side come from four points down to Parnell’s with four minutes of normal time remaining.

Parnell’s – which is the home club of Stephen Cluxton, though the Dublin star did not play - seemed well in control for large parts of the match as the contest seemed to be slipping away from Scoil, but they managed to crawl back to bring the game level at 0-11 each after 60 minutes.

Even by the end of extra-time, the match seemed destined for penalties only for corner-back and Man of the Match Paudí Conlon to hit the winner in what was the final play of the night. Interestingly, McCrea was one of nine players in the starting fifteen that aren’t original members of the club, with players ranging from Kerry, Antrim, Louth and Mayo.

The 25-year-old was starting full-back when the Donegal county minors last won the Ulster title in 2016 and reached the All-Ireland semi-final, where they were beaten in Croke Park to Galway.

McCrea was involved with Four Masters as recently as last season, before joining the Clontarf Road club in 2023 who will now play senior football next season for the first time since 1995.