Galway U17s run riot

Galway Maroon 4-24

North Cork 2-12

Kevin Egan at O’Connor Park

IF Saturday’s Celtic Challenge Division One final is anything to go by, there is incredible strength and depth in the Galway minor hurling ranks this year, based on a remarkable second half display from Galway Maroon against North Cork.

After a closely contested first half that saw North Cork take a 2-7 to 0-8 lead into the dressing rooms, with both goals coming from towering full forward Alan Walsh, this looked like a game that was going to go down to the wire – as did every other game that was played on the six-game programme at Bord na Móna Park in Tullamore.

However, nobody could have imagined the tour de force that was to come from John Mullins’ charges as they produced a scintillating display of fast, devastating hurling that saw the Rebel County side overwhelmed, 4-16 to 0-5 in that second 30 minutes.

Colum Molloy, who was the winner of the “Best and Fairest” award at the end of the game, scrambled in the first goal and that was followed with two more from rampaging wing forward Conor Slattery and another for Niall Glynn, while even when Mullins went to his bench, he was able to find scoring power.

It was a crushing display and when one considered that these are just some of the players that were deemed surplus to requirements for the county minor panel, Galway’s prospects of making it three Irish Press Cup wins in-a-row received a huge boost without the first team even taking to the field.

The Rebel County played with the aid of a slight breeze in the first half but even allowing for this, they would have been the happier side going into the dressing rooms, leading by 2-7 to 0-8 thanks to two identical goals from full forward Walsh.

The big Kanturk player was used as a target man on the edge of the square and he certainly presented a ideal target to his outfield players, leaping high to pluck the sliothar from the clouds and showing a fine turn of pace to rattle the back of Ben Murphy’s net on two separate occasions.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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