Sice and Burke in excellent form for a sluggish Corofin

Date Published: {J}

Corofin 2-11

Micheál Breathnachs 1-6

Dara Bradley

at Pearse Stadium

FOR the first quarter of this Galway senior football preliminary round championship clash at Pearse Stadium on Sunday, title favourites Corofin looked flat-footed and Micheál Breathnachs played with the energy that helped them to earn a shock win over the same opposition in the same fixture two seasons ago.

History couldn’t repeat itself, surely? Damn right it couldn’t. It’s not that Corofin were outstanding – far from it – but they had enough experienced leaders all over the park, and lads capable of taking scores when it mattered, to comfortably advance to the last 16.

Corofin, who performed nowhere near the heights of recent campaigns, have ample room for improvement but still thoroughly deserved their eight points victory, which probably says more about the ineptitude of their opponents than it does about Brian Silke’s men: Micheál Breathnach’s were truly awful.

The Connemara man, although well on top in possession stakes early on, flattered to deceive and their overall display over the hour was as poor as you’ll see at this level. No attempt at sugar coating will mask the fact that they scored just 1-1 from play, with five of their six starting forwards contributing nothing from play on the scoreboard.

Breathnach’s registered four wides in total so it’s not that they created ample opportunities either, something you couldn’t say about the north Galway kingpins, who shot a dozen wayward efforts.

A match that failed to get the pulses racing was illuminated twice by two superb finishes to the net by county player Damien Burke, who was a real handful when using his strength to win possession at centre-forward.

We may be more accustomed to seeing him in a defensive role and he may not have the attacking nous of, say, a Seán Armstrong or Nicky Joyce, but Burke’s championship debut up front was one of the few highlights of a timid affair.

Gary Sice, another who has had many stand-out days in defence for club and county, put in a man-of-the-match effort at wing-forward – he chipped in with three fine points from play and had a buzz about him throughout that was sadly lacking from so many others that togged out.

Corofin were persistently fouling in the early exchanges, and were a bit off the pace in contrast to Breathnach’s who looked liveliest from the throw-in. They were snaffling all the breaking ball round the middle but, for all their huffing and puffing, had a miserly two pointed frees from Peadar Ó Cionnaith to show for their 15 minutes of dominance.

Full-forward Kieran Comer rounded his marker with ease to open Corofin’s account on 14 minutes and seconds later Burke registered his first three-pointer. Gearóid Ó Flátharta gathered a short kick-out but was dispossessed and Burke had just one thing on his mind and he buried a haymaker of a shot past Caoimhín Mac an tSaoir.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.