Impressive champions cruise past Athenry in mis-match

Gort 2-27

Athenry 0-15

Mark Walsh in Clarinbridge

DISHING out an 18-point pasting to Athenry would have been unheard of a decade ago, but Saturday’s meeting of Gort and Athenry perhaps showed best the current positions the respective clubs occupy in the Galway hurling hierarchy.

Athenry were competitive for a good 40 minutes, but overall their second half display wasn’t up to scratch, underlined by the fact that they conceded 2-14 and only scored 0-7. A couple of outside factors influenced it.

Firstly, they played without James Divilly or Tom Flynn, both of whom lined out on Sunday for Athenry footballers in the Intermediate county final. Divilly had played right-half back and Flynn centre-half forward against Padraig Pearses and Ardrahan the two weekends previous. Secondly, it would have taken an extraordinary set of circumstances for Athenry to have qualified from Group B for the last eight.

The biggest reason as to why Athenry were over-ran after half-time though, was the quality of the opposition they were facing in the reigning county champions. Gort have some way to go to emulate the three All-Ireland club titles that Athenry have collected, but win this weekend against Portumna, and the momentum they’ll have gathered could propel them to a third county title in five years, and after that who knows.

Portumna will have had two weeks off since their tight win over St. Thomas’, and while Gort strolled to a facile win in the final quarter, there were a number of positives to take from their display.

With Gerry Quinn only being sprung from the bench, they showcased the strength of their squad, and the ability of different players to put their hand up on different days was noteworthy. Jason Grealish was outstanding against Athenry. Not only did he score 1-5 from play, but he was so often the catalyst for good Gort moves and scores.

Aidan Harte would have pushed Grealish for any Man of the Match award gong, and Richie Cummins also deserves mentioning for shooting 0-8 from play, four in four second half minutes towards the end. Gort could afford to withdraw Greg Lally seven minutes into the second half, the substituting of one of their inter-county contingent being more for an injury precaution than anything else.

One suspects Lally will be fine to play Portumna in Athenry on Sunday, a venue Gort will be more accustomed to than Clarinbridge. It was the first time a senior championship fixture was held in Clarinbridge this year, and considering all the sporting action taking place last weekend, a healthy crowd was in attendance for the Saturday afternoon throw-in.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.