Comer and Burke leave Tuam men seeing stars

Annaghdown 2-15

Tuam Stars 1-6

HAVING come so close to overthrowing Corofin at the semi-final stage of last year’s county championship, Annaghdown showed that they will once again have a large part to play in this year’s race for the Frank Fox Cup as they thoroughly dismantled Tuam Stars in this opening round clash.

As was often the case before, Damien Comer and Frankie Burke were the main men for Annaghdown, bagging 2-12 between them, and while Annaghdown were impressive throughout, the fairly abject resistance provided by Tuam should also be taken into account. Even had Ja Fallon’s side taken advantage of some of the chances they wasted, they still wouldn’t have come close to getting a result.

It was actually Tuam who moved into an early lead when Gavan Connell opened their account after a minute but it didn’t take long for Annaghdown to find their rhythm and they were 0-5 to 0-1 ahead by the eighth minute. Conor Moloney and Anthony Pender, marauding up from full-back, both got points from play while Damien Comer tacked on three frees.

Tuam had a glorious chance to grab the game’s first goal after ten minutes. Gary O’Donnell played Shane Gaffney in on goal but the corner-forward could only slice his right-footed effort across the posts and wide. A superb mark in midfield from Paul Collins did set up Jamie Murphy to get a point back for Tuam soon after but when Annaghdown followed that up with two goals, Tuam were already in trouble.

The first major came in the 13th minute from the penalty spot. Frankie Burke lofted a diagonal ball into the direction of Conor Moloney in front of goal and, while Paul Collins might have had a hand on the Annaghdown man’s back, the penalty call looked a little harsh. As it was, Burke stepped up to take the kick and buried it into the top right corner.

Full report in this week’s Connacht Tribune.