Galwegians retain Connacht Senior League

Galwegians retained the Connacht Senior league trophy at Cloonacauneen on Saturday when running out 38-11 winners over Corinthians.

Playing with the aid of a stiff first-half breeze, ’Wegians went on the offensive right from the start, and early dominance in the scrum had the home pack in all sorts of trouble. The pressure soon told and flanker Eoin Tarmey dived over from the base of a ruck for the game’s opening try, which was converted by out-half Ross Shaughnessy.

The hosts slowly worked their way into the game and opened their account with a 15^th minute penalty from Philip Maher, but this was soon cancelled out by a penalty from Shaughnessy to restore a seven point advantage for the visitors.

Despite dominating matters, ’Wegians were making hard work of their wind advantage and were getting on the wrong side of the referee at the breakdown and the offside line. They were punished by the hosts who added a second Maher penalty after the half-hour mark for not rolling away.

At this stage a four-point lead was poor value for the Blues, and they needed a score to boost their half-time lead with the elements to face in the second-half. It duly arrived in the 35^th minute when slick handling saw Colin Conroy come off his wing, and he took a brilliant line to slice through the cover before feeding left-wing Matt Dever who dived over for an excellent try. Shaughnessy landed a superb touchline conversion to give the Blues a 17-6 half-time lead.

Corinthians came out all guns blazing in the second-half with the wind at their backs, and with ’Wegians having a man in the bin for persistent offside, they immediately attacked the ’Wegians line. However they failed to take advantage of a succession of close-in penalties, and the hard-working Blues defence turned ball over and lifted the siege.

When the hosts were then reduced to 14 men with a sin-binning of their own, ’Wegians took immediate advantage by counter-attacking, and winger Dever showed a great turn of pace to cut through the midfield outside the 22 and dive over at the posts for his second try, which Shaughnessy converted for a 24-6 lead.

The game was never in doubt from this point, and ’Wegians showed killer instinct to press on and hammer home their advantage. A magnificent charge up the middle by the impressive prop Jason East punctured the home defence, and centre Gary O’Brien showed deft footwork to outwit the home defence and dive under the posts for a fourth try with 55 minutes played.

Both sides rung the changes towards the end, but there was no way back for Corinthians. And the second-half was summed up in the 72^nd minute when Brian McClearn plucked a high ball from nowhere and some superb handling by his supporting pack created the chance for stand-in captain on the day Brian Murphy who dived over for a fifth try, and Shaughnessy made it six from six to land the conversion.