Cashel blow half-time lead to miss out on quarter-finals

Craughwell  1-19

Castlegar  1-18

Pádraic Ó Ciardha at Pearse Stadium

For the third year running, Castlegar have failed to progress past the group stage of the championship after they fell to a one point defeat to Craughwell in Pearse Stadium last weekend. Five points clear at halftime, the city side were well positioned to get the win they needed but failed to fire in the second half as Craughwell took charge of the contest.

Cashel’s highs and lows were summed up in the performance of Ger Farragher. The veteran was excellent in the first half, striking 1-7, which included two fine points from play and a beautiful sideline cut, but Farragher never got going in the second half.

Part of that was due to Craughwell’s decision to go man-for-man and put Ger O’Halloran on Farragher, which worked brilliantly as O’Halloran denied the Cashel playmaker any space in open play. To compound matters, Farragher’s usual accuracy from placed balls then deserted him with Oisín Connolly eventually taking over free-taking duty.

Farragher was far from the only one on the Castlegar side to struggle in the second half, however, with the damage to their chances done in the third quarter when Craughwell outscored them 1-7 to 0-1. Thomas Monaghan, who gave an excellent performance in the previous round, was again central to Craughwell’s success and he finished with five points from play.

Monaghan signalled his intent from the get-go as he gathered possession from the throw-in and soloed through to open the scoring after just 10 seconds. Cillian O’Callaghan responded for Castlegar inside two minutes and his side moved into the lead with a nicely taken point from Simon Thomas before Ger Farragher’s sideline cut from 50m out doubled their lead.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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