Ulster Club SFC: Rory Beggan revels in the 'chaos' as Scotstown sink Kilcoo

"This competition is chaos".

So said Rory Beggan a few minutes after his last-kick long-range free had resulted in Scotstown dumping All-Ireland kingpins from two seasons ago Kilcoo out of this year's Ulster Club Championship.

And remarkably, there was an even more dramatic finish to the weekend's concluding provincial quarter-final at Breffni Park as Kevin McGettigan's last-kick goal secured Naomh Conaill a 2-8 to 1-10 win over a devastated Gowna.

After a rather low-key opening to the provincial series which had seen Kilcoo ease past Derrygonnelly in the preliminary round and Trillick comfortably subdue Crossmaglen on Saturday evening, suddenly we were reminded why we love this competition.

Another of Scotstown's and Monaghan's veterans Darren Hughes admitted that it looked as though "it wasn't going to be our day" at Pairc Esler when they found themselves three points down with five minutes to go after "kicking an ocean of ball away".

"Then we got it back to two and back to one and kept chipping away. We got them boxed in on kickouts. They probably sat back a bit too much," added the midfielder.

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And even though Kilcoo did manage to regain the lead in injury-time thanks to a Paul Devlin point after Scotstown had drawn level, a Kieran Hughes 'mark' restored parity once more before the same man won possession and a free, which Beggan slotted in the final kick of the game.

"The linesman said it [the time] was well up at that stage," said Beggan of his thought process as he stood up to take the last-gasp free.

The goalkeeper had missed some "easy" placed balls early on as the sides went in 0-4 apiece at the break but a successful huge 65-metre effort earlier in the second half had indicated that his eye was now in.

"I had no doubt. I always backed myself," added the keeper, who in customary fashion, had increasingly joined in the midfield exchanges as the match reached its boiling point.

"It wasn't in my nature to miss those sort of easy ones but I said at half-time that I was making up for those whenever they came along. Thankfully it was the winning one.

"I'd had bigger [more important frees before] and I missed them. There's nothing won from this game. It's a free at the end of the day. It's a semi-final [we're into now]."

As for his earlier monster free, Beggan added: "I saw Kieran [Hughes] on the edge of the square and I said 'I'll put my boot through it. If it goes over, it goes over. If it drops in, something might come off it'."

Beggan's father Ben was among those congratulating the keeper after the contest and playfully related to BBC Sport Northern Ireland that his three Ulster Club medals with Scotstown [1979, 1980, 1989] are three more than his son has won.

"The older generation are reminding us of that," smiled the keeper.

"We're catching up in club championship medals but we're nowhere near what they've done in this competition but we want to try and mimic that in any way possible.

"But it's only one win. We've Trillick now and they will test us to the pin of the collar like they did in 2015."

Scotstown edged that semi-final eight years ago 1-15 to 0-15 to progress to a provincial decider against Crossmaglen which the six-time All-Ireland champions won 2-17 to 2-12 after extra-time.

"Trillick tipped them [Crossmaglen] off and they will be happy coming through and probably didn't give much away. I'm sure they will be happy to see us coming," concluded Beggan.