County champions have no answer to St. Thomas’

FORMER All-Ireland club champions St Thomas’ look the team to beat as the Galway senior hurling title race continues the sorting out process ahead of the final round of group matches.

In maintaining their winning run, David Burke and company produced the team’s best display of the campaign so far by easily dismantling champions Liam Mellows at Kenny Park on Sunday evening.

True, the city club were missing key forwards Tadgh Haran and Aonghus Callanan, but Mellows’ big problems were at the other end as they couldn’t get a handle on the likes of county player Conor Cooney.

St Thomas’ are sitting pretty at the top of Senior A Group 1, with Castlegar – a late Kevin Keane goal gave them a priceless win over Craughwell on Saturday evening – set to join them in the knock-out stages.

Naturally, there was despair in the Craughwell dressing room after that narrow loss, but they were thrown an unexpected lifeline when Kilnadeema/Leitrim produced a rousing display in drawing with Tommy Larkins at Duggan Park.

Incredibly, this was the Woodford side’s fourth consecutive stalemate outcome, leaving them facing a winner-takes-all confrontation with Craughwell in the closing round of group games.

If things are going smoothly for St Thomas’, the same cannot be said for another former All-Ireland club winner, Portumna, who slumped to their third group defeat against Cappataggle, a result which leaves their hopes of progress hanging by the proverbial thread.

Not alone would Portumna have to beat Mullagh convincingly in the final round, they also need both Cappataggle and Loughrea to lose their contests against Sarsfields and Gort respectively. In short, it’s odds against Portumna surviving. Mullagh are slightly better placed having beaten Cappataggle if the final group places are decided on a head-to-head basis.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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