Salthill men fail to cope with steep rise in class

Date Published: 14-Nov-2012

THE Connacht Club football championship hasn’t been a productive hunting ground for the Galway title holders in recent seasons and that trend continued at Pearse Stadium last Sunday. After their emphatic county final dismissal of Tuam Stars last month, Salthill Knocknacarra were being tipped as a serious threat to the current dominance of St. Brigid’s at provincial level, but they came up badly short on home turf.

There were mitigating factors, however, against Salthill reproducing the quality of their Galway title victory before even the ball was thrown in at Pearse Stadium. Having to field without injured defender Ruaidhri McTiernan and midfielder Gary Cox naturally did them no favours, while losing their top sharpshooter Seamie Crowe in the opening five minutes against the experienced Roscommon men was another untimely blow.

But given the trend of Sunday’s provincial semi-final, it’s doubtful if Salthill would have carried the day even operating with a full hand. St. Brigid’s were just too physically powerful and with a sprinkling of Roscommon inter-county players through their team, the title holders have no shortage of quality and battle-hardened individuals who know how to win at this level. They also performed with a greater intensity.

Chasing a third consecutive Connacht championship, Frankie Dolan and company were far more direct too than a Salthill outfit which burned up a mountain of energy by an almost slavish devotion to a short passing game. Frequently, they made heavy work of breaking out of defence and their build ups were just too slow. Worse again, they also needlessly lost possession in not adopting a more direct approach.

To St. Brigid’s credit, they tended to swarm the opposition player in possession, but Salthill’s laboured progress up the field made them an easy target and they can have no complaints over the nearly double scores defeat. Initially, however, the Galway champions were holding their own. Tom Burke, quick to get to the pitch of the game, opened their account with a fine effort and also supplied the decisive pass for Sean Armstrong to raise a white flag in the sixth minute.

Substitute Eoin O’Mahony, who had already replaced the injured Crowe, landed a free as well to leave Salthill on level terms after ten minutes. It was an encouraging opening, but gradually St. Brigid’s began to impose their authority on the exchanges. Senan Kilbride, who proved a handful up front, was on target from play and frees, while they also had the bonus of landing points from raiding defenders Darragh Donnelly and Garvan Dolan.

Salthill were now struggling to make headway up front and when Armstrong drove over a 40 yards free near the end of the half, it was their first score for 16 minutes. That left them trailing by 0-8 to 0-4 at the interval and while the city men weren’t out of it, a vast improvement was clearly required on the resumption. They needed to hit the ground the running at the start of the second-half, but young O’Mahony missed a relatively routine free, while Salthill also began losing their discipline, highlighted by conceding so many frees.

They were unable to take advantage either of Shane Curran’s rush of blood to the head in the 33rd minute when the St. Brigid’s goalkeeper set off on a risky solo run – he must be reading too many ‘Roy of the Rovers’ comics lately – only to lose possession about 45 yards out from his own posts. Salthill, however, failed to make Curran pay. Instead, they fell 0-11 to 0-4 behind as Frankie Dolan, Kilbride and Damien Kelleher all found the target at the other end.

To be honest, Salthill’s cause was already lost but they did launch something of a mini-revival with three points ( two frees) from the hard working Armstrong, but he also missed the posts from two placed balls, while Conor Healy was also wayward when the margin was back down to four points. Subsequently, Healy was harshly penalised for a ‘foul pass’ in his own half back line and when Dolan landed the resulting free, Salthill’s fate was sealed.

They never gave up, but all Gerry Hughes’ squad could manage in the final quarter was an injury time close range effort from David Tierney. There were no such problems for St. Brigid’s, who also had big influences in midfielders Ian Kilbride and Karol Mannion, as they emphasised their superiority with three further placed ball efforts from Dolan and an effort from play by Niall Grehan to advance on a 0-15 to 0-8 scoreline.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.