Football final fails to take off

Date Published: 08-Oct-2009

A CURIOUS affair probably best sums up a somewhat bemusing county final showdown between one team that never looked like losing and the other that never looked like winning — in the end it was if the Gods decided a draw would give both warring factions a chance to come back and do better.

All of the backdrop elements were in place for a classic encounter . . . the old stadium was groomed to perfection, October delivered a resplendent autumnal day, and there was a general consensus that the two best sides in the county had made it through to the county final . . . but despite all that, the drama on offer was more backstreet than Broadway.

Maybe too, grandiose expectations for county final showdowns are more the stuff of fantasy than the grinding reality of trying to stay that point ahead of your rivals when the final whistle sounds.

From an entertainment perspective, the day was saved to some extent by the tightness of the scoring but Corofin won’t be too enamoured by their contribution to that particular scenario, as they frittered away a series of gilt edged chances, which if even half of them had been converted, would have given them a comfortable margin of victory.

Mountbellew-Moylough will take some dogged satisfaction, from the fact that through thick and thin, they stuck to their task at hand but they will also wonder this week if they can find some formula to try and come close to matching Corofin’s vastly superior teamwork, pace, and ability to mop up breaking ball in almost all parts of the pitch, but especially around the fringes of the midfield sector.

Quite incredibly, none of Mountbellew’s six starting forwards scored from play as they found the Corofin defence both quicker and stronger in that first scavenge for possession – whether Cyril Ryan’s side can find an antidote to that ailment between now and the replay is one mighty ask.

The crowd in the region of 5,500 (4,000 paid in), a tad disappointing given the occasion and the fine day (maybe the €20 admission was a touch strong, and there were also sulks about the €5 programme charge), witnessed a grim enough encounter with only very occasional interludes of open play as Corofin seemed destined all day, to just make it over the line.

But the champions of last year could never quite put Mountbellew-Moylough away, and the reason for that was quite simple, as Gerry Keane’s side delivered quite an extraordinary succession of quite shocking wides, especially in the first half when they were lining up like schoolboys at a training session for shots at goal.

Corofin went in at the interval 6-5 up, but the sub-plot tale of the first half was the 9-0 wides tally in favour of the county champions after they had dominated possession for large chunks of the opening 30 minutes.

Mountbellew-Moylough gambled by playing Joe Bergin at full forward in the reasonable enough hope of getting some good early ball into their ‘county man’ but only morsels of possession filtered through to him. After the first 10 minutes of that scenario he really needed to be moved out to the kick-out drop zone where Corofin were dominating.

Corofin swarmed around midfield in numbers with Greg Higgins their focal point for a series of attacks on the beleaguered Mountbellew goal. Aidan Donnellan also worked hard early on, while Damien Burke, Tony Goggins and Alan Burke were voracious in picking up breaks.

The wides though rained in from all angles, backs and forwards included, and quite incredibly as half-time approached the sides were tied at 0-5 apiece, before an Alan O’Donovan ’45’ put Corofin
6-5 ahead at the break.

Even that…

Full report and analysis in the Tribune