Corofin on cloud nine after crushing Ballintubber

COROFIN 2-13

BALLINTUBBER 1-7

ANY lingering doubts about the bona fides of Corofin as a club side of genuine quality and class were well and truly buried under the green sod of Castlebar’s MacHale Park on Sunday when the Galway champions demolished the challenge of an outclassed Ballintubber side.

This was to be the game to test Corofin following a season of big wins across Galway and Leitrim, with Ballintubber reputedly packing a fair punch after recent successes over Castlebar and St. Brigids, but once more Stephen Rochford’s side quite simply played the game at a different level to their opponents.

With a trip to London coming up before Christmas, Corofin will be doing their best to dampen down expectations, but yet the team and management will take a lot of quiet satisfaction from travelling down to Ballintubber’s backdoor and returning to Cummer with the Shane McGettigan Cup.

There was no scrimping or scraping in this Corofin success. They might have only led by three points at the interval but by then they had laid down a very clear marker in terms of winning clean possession, moving the ball at pace, and into the bargain, defending quite stingily as well.

After the first quarter, Corofin had won the first big battle of this match around the middle of the field. Their trio of Ronan Steede, Daithí Burke and Greg Higgins were utterly dominant against Stephen Broderick and Jason Gibbons, a duo who came into the game with impressive form cards.

That possession graph never really changed from start to finish, while in defence, Gary Delany (back after injury) and Kieran Fitzgerald, defended with a zeal that almost completely shut-out a Ballintubber attack, unable to generate any real poke.

The final part of the Corofin success package was provided in their livewire attack, where Ian Burke, in particular gave a class exhibition of corner forward play – always out in front of his man, quick with his passes but most importantly willing to look up at the posts and drive the ball over the blackspot.

He was by no means a ‘lone bird’ in his endeavours with Gary Sice, Michael Lundy and Michael Farragher also lively and deadly accurate in their ball distribution, as Ballintubber struggled to keep in touch.

Corofin’s performance though cannot be segmented and therein lies their real strength – the whole of their endeavour is far greater than the sum of its parts. As an integrated unit, Corofin so far, seem to be in a league of their own in club football.

Once Corofin established their midfield superiority early on, a steady stream of chances started to be created with Ian Burke kicking four of their seven first half points while the Farragher brothers, Michael and Martin, as well as Michael Lundy also found the target.