Comer’s goal helps champs fend off Caherlistrane

Date Published: 24-Aug-2010

Corofin 1-11 Caherlistrane 0-10

FRANK FARRAGHER

AT TUAM STADIUM

COROFIN are pretty tight operators when it comes to second chance saloon games and although Caherlistrane lost copious amounts of sweat in trying to land a ‘big one’ against their greatest rivals at Tuam Stadium on Sunday, the county champions came through this test with a fair bit to spare.

Many clubs in North Galway have learnt through bitter experience that you only tend to get one chance of beating Corofin in a championship series, and alas for Caherlistrane their moment of destiny had come one week previously on the Tuam turf.

This quarter-final replay drew a crowd of about 2,000 to ‘the stadium’ and while they got reasonably good value for money over the first 45 minutes, Corofin had this match wrapped up long before the turn for the home straight.

From an opposition point of view, Corofin are a bit like Kerry in the championship – for all pretenders to the throne the earlier they can be disposed of the better, but once they survive the quarter-finals, watch out.

For a few fleeting minutes approaching the mid-way point of the second half, it appeared as if the golden gates of opportunity could open up for Caherlistrane as a few little things were going against Corofin.

A couple of Cormac Bane frees had reduced the deficit to two points at 1-6 to 1-7 when a close quarters confrontation developed between Corofin’s Gary Sice and Caherlistrane’s Brendan Murphy.Sice appeared to take a swing at Murphy which missed the target, but referee Frank Kinneen had no hesitation in issuing a red card to the Corofin player with Murphy getting the yellow.