Ring-rusty ‘Bridge show hints of class in defeat of St Thomas

Date Published: {J}

Clarinbridge 2-12

St Thomas’ 0-13

Eoghan Cormican at Kenny Park

A dominant first half display – in which they held a nine point interval advantage – saw Clarinbridge pick up their second win of the Cooper Galway Senior Hurling Championship against a lethargic St Thomas’ outfit at Kenny Park, Athenry on Saturday.

Despite tasting defeat at the hands of Turloughmore before the summer recess, Clarinbridge will finish in poll position if they can overcome Castlegar in their final Group C encounter. The All-Ireland club champions were far from their best on Saturday evening, but this was all about making a return to winning ways and in that sense it was a job done, well done at that.

As for St Thomas, their future in this year’s championship now rests on the meeting of Sarsfields and Turloughmore, where victory for Sarsfields would see John Burke’s side advance. A win for Turlough, however, would bring an end to Thomas’ campaign as the championship enters the knockout phases.

The opening quarter exchanges were largely forgettable with the blustery condition by no means favourable to crisp hurling, Clarinbridge though, showed patches of brilliance to detract from the stop-start nature of the contest.

In any event, playing with the elements in the first half, Clarinbridge led 0-5 to 0-1 by the end of the first quarter with scores from the extremely lively Alan Kerins, Barry Daly, Shane Burke and two Mark Kerins frees.

Indeed, the County champions could have been further ahead had Eoin Forde netted an excellent goal chance in the 11th minute, but the full forward drilled his effort straight at Thomas’ ‘keeper James Barrett.

St Thomas’, who opened through Conor Cooney in the 12th minute, responded with two points in a two minute spell from midfielders David and Kenneth Burke, but would fail to find the target again in over the minutes by which juncture Clarinbridge were well on the road to success, leading by 2-7 to 0-3.

St Thomas’ had played some decent hurling, but Clarinbridge cranked it up a notch with a neat effort from the stick of Alan Kerins, before two goals in the space of a minute courtesy of Eoin Forde turned proceedings on their head.

Alan Kerins was the chief architect in the game’s opening major and less than 60 seconds later, things got an awful lot worse for Thomas’, as Clarinbridge found the net again. Paul Coen snapped up possession before offloading to Forde who fired home from close range.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.