Mellows use all their craft to take spoils in a cracker

Liam Mellows 2-13

Oranmore/Maree 0-17

Patrick Earley at Kenny Park

APPEARING in three successive county finals teaches you a lot about how to win tight games and how to carry yourself coming down the stretch when the pressure is on. And Liam Mellows were forced to summon up all that nouse and know-how to get the better of a fiercely competitive and driven Oranmore/Maree outfit in this cracking senior hurling championship tie at Kenny Park on Sunday evening.

It was the final senior game of a jam-packed weekend and if you are of the opinion that the best should be left to last, well then you were certainly treated on the Galway GAA streaming service on Sunday because this was real championship fare at its most enthralling.

Not always the most free-flowing or fast-paced, what made this game so great was the desire both sides showed for the cause, leading to a game where every duel for possession was full-blooded and every tackle meant that bit more.

Level with 12 minutes of normal time remaining, Oranmore/Maree were the ones with their tails up having recovered from the concession of goals either side of the break to restore parity, but with Niall Burke their sole scorer in the second period aside from one glorious Ross Malone effort from a lineball they found scores that bit harder to come by than Mellows, who had six different players send the umpires pick up their flags.

It truly was a terrific contest which hung in the balance right up until John McDonagh’s final shrill of the whistle, with the prize for Mellows at the end of it all a date with Gort in the preliminary quarter-final this coming Sunday.

There were no hard luck stories for Oranmore/Maree, who weren’t aided by the loss of Sean McInerney with a hand injury in the lead-up to the game and the early withdrawal of Niall Geoghegan, though there was a contentious decision which went Mellows’ way with the awarding of a penalty shortly after the break for a foul on Conor Kavanagh.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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