Watch: How quick-thinking Thompson set up Naomh Conaill's last-gasp winning goal

Naomh Conaill are known for getting themselves out of scrapes but Sunday's quarter-final win over Gowna was something they hadn't managed before.

With three minutes of the allotted injury time already up, it was last chance saloon, and Anthony Thompson played a one-two from a free-kick with Mark McDevitt and delivered a ball into the Cavan champions' square.

The move was incredibly smart from Thompson, as Cahair O'Kane of the Irish News pointed out - [attacking] players may enter the opponents’ small rectangle from open play once the ball is kicked, whereas they would have to have waited on the ball to enter the square had it come directly from the free-kick.

Kevin McGettigan, last year's Naomh Conaill captain, managed to squeeze the ball into the net for an unlikely goal, which gave his team a victory on the slenderest of margins, 2-8 to 1-10, at Kingspan Breffni.

Rory Beggan wasn't the only last-kick hero. Kevin McGettigan's 63rd minute goal saw Naomh Conaill snatch victory over Gowna with the very last kick as well. Anthony Thompson the first man in history to go short with the free and change the square ball rule to his team's advantage pic.twitter.com/4N06G6xraO

— Cahair O'Kane (@CahairOKane1) November 12, 2023

Naomh Conaill might've deserved their bit of luck, as on Friday, the senior men's team gave a wonderful surprise to Danny McLoone and his classmates at Scoil Mhuire in Glenties. Naomh Conaill chipped in and arranged for Danny, who was diagnosed with leukaemia in 2020, and his friends to travel to Letterkenny on McGuinness Coaches for a fun day at the Century Complex and dinner.

The schoolchildren enjoyed their day and no doubt would've been delighted with Sunday's result. Naomh Conaill now play Ulster and Derry champions Watty Grahams in the semi-final the weekend after next.