Black and amber leave Seasiders feeling blue

MOUNTBELLEW-MOYLOUGH 1-12

SALTHILL-KNOCKNACARRA 1-7

The only riddle to emerge from this senior county football semi-final in Tuam on Sunday was in trying to figure out how Mountbellew only had five points to spare when time was called.

Mountbellew-Moylough ended up with 13 scores and 15 wides, after having Salthill on the rack for long periods of a match that at least offered slightly better value than the previous encounter between Corofin and Cortoon.

While both teams did enjoy their spells of dominance, Mountbellew’s control periods tended to last far longer than those of a Salthill side lacking any real sense of purpose for long stretches of this match.

The winners looked better drilled, more motivated and played with a far greater sense of teamwork than a Salthill-Knocknacarra side, almost completely dependent on occasional counter attacks spearheaded by Shane Maughan.

At the end of the opening 10 minutes, when Mountbellew led by 0-3 to 0-1 thanks to points from Eoin Finnerty, Joe Bergin (a massive punched effort) and Cathal Kenny (free), the writing already looked to be on the wall for Val Daly’s charges.

Quite unexpectedly though, Salthill produced one of their rare attacking spurts of creativity in the 12th minute, when Paul Butler and Shane Maughan combined to set up Marcus MacDonnachadha for a well-executed goal.

For all their early dominance, the winners now found themselves a point behind, but again the game reverted to its early pattern with Mountbellew winning a lot of good possession while their forwards looked full of pep.

Two Barry McHugh points from play along with a Cathal Kenny free had them back in front again by 0-6 to 1-2 before they had a goal disallowed in rather unusual circumstances.

A slick attacking move split the Salthill defence wide open and the simplest of goal chances looked to be there for the taking when Eoin Finnerty handpassed across the face of goal, as Paul Donnellan and Barry McHugh raced in to apply the necessary final touch.

However Finnerty’s fisted pass was just that shade too direct and the umpires adjudged that the ball had crossed the goal line before Donnellan got the final touch – it was to be one of many reprieves that Salthill enjoyed over the hour.

As the half wore on, there were more sighs than salutes from the sizeable Mountbellew-Moylough contingent in the crowd of more than 3,500, with their charges shooting 10 wides from a variety of angles and distances.

Goalkeeper Brian Donnellan, Michael Daly (3), Cathal Duffy, Cathal Kenny, Joe Bergin, Matthew Barrett and Eoin Finnerty joined in the wides fest, but just as a crisis half-time team talk loomed, the perfect antidote arrived.

The first half was in injury-time when Mountbellew midfielder Matthew Barrett laid on an inch-perfect 50 yard kicked pass to Eoin Finnerty and the full-forward finished sweetly to the net from 12 yards.

It was no more than the North Galway side deserved for their first-half effort and effectively this was to be defining score of the match. Mountbellew went in leading at the interval by 1-6 to 1-2 and after that Salthill never came closer than three points to them.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.