Athenry send out right signals

Date Published: 12-Jun-2008

ATHENRY may have slipped slightly down the pecking order in Galway club hurling in the past couple of years, but make no mistake about it the resurgence is well and truly underway as they showed when overcoming a disappointing Loughrea side at the losers’ home patch on Sunday evening.

These sides have built up a fait bit of rivalry in recent years and their fourth clash at the weekend in as many years was no less intense or tough as their previous ones but Athenry were by far the superior outfit and should have won the game by more, even allowing for the absence of sharp shooter Eugene Cloonan, and the dismissal of corner forward Adrian Healy nine minutes into the second half.

Loughrea will be bitterly disappointed given that the match was played out in their own back yard, but their failure on the day wasn’t down to any one individual or reason, but rather a total collapse with
gaping holes all over the field.
Failing to score in the opening 15 minutes along with 16 wides over the hour didn’t help their cause either while some of their players appeared a yard or two short on pace of their much livelier opponents.
Athenry were four points to the good by the time Johnny O’Loughlin got Loughrea off the mark thanks to one each from David Donohue and the hard working Emmet Caulfield, while any indiscretions
on the losers’ part were being severely punished by Sean Glynn who was deadly accurate from the placed ball.

Athenry keeper John Grealish was in sparkling form too denying Kenneth Colleran a goal from his close range strike after 10 minutes while Ciaran O’Donovan was impressive at full back, dealing
more than capably with what little threat Loughrea were posing. The Loughrea wides tally was…