Corofin make short work of NUIG in mismatch

Corofin                 0-17 NUIG                     0-6

TITLE favourites Corofin comfortably booked their place in the quarter finals of the Galway senior football championship with a facile win over a game NUIG outfit who, given the nature in which their side had been thrown together at the last minute, put up a decent showing at Pearse Stadium on Sunday evening.

The students put up a wholehearted display and trailed by only four at the break, but given that desperate attempts were still being made via social media during the week to patch together a squad for this fixture, the 17 players who togged out were never looked likely to pose a threat to Corofin’s continued participation in the competition.

Corofin, hotly tipped to recapture the Frank Fox trophy before last weekend’s action began, will have learned little or nothing about their prospects from this outing. They rarely needed to raise a gallop to overcome this challenge, but they were still unusually lethargic for large portions of the first half and missed a plethora of goal chances over the course of the hour.

David Morris’ side looked at their best when powerful runners attacked from deep, with the likes of Ronan Steede, Gary Sice, and Barry O’Donovan making incisive bursts, but too often simple errors left the handful of supporters in a sparsely occupied stand pulling out their hair. Credit Cork’s Pat Kirby for making some fine saves, but Corofin should not have finished the tie without a goal to their name.

A squad list without numbers on the matchday programme gave an illustration of the last minute nature of NUIG’s preparations, but while Corofin’s Colm O’Donovan kicked a majestic point within 24 seconds of the throw-in, the college side were level as the clocked ticked beyond the tenth minute as Eoin Sweeney converted a free after Steede had forced a fine save from Kirby.

Westmeath’s John Egan, while named at right corner forward, was NUIG’s playmaker in the early stages in a deep role, and Corofin hardly aided their cause by leaving the spare man in defence which, allied to their poor passing in the early stages, allowed the students to work the ball out of defence at their leisure and keep possession relatively comfortably. Read full match report in this week’s Connacht Tribune.