St. Brigid’s boys in different class to flattering Athenry

Date Published: 06-Mar-2013

St. Brigid’s VS 4-17

Athenry VS 0-10

STEPHEN GLENNON AT PEARSE STADIUM

WHEN St. Brigid’s Vocational School, Loughrea light the fireworks, they sure can put on quite a display. In the end, Athenry VS had just no answer to the power, pace and precision of the reigning Connacht and All-Ireland champions in an entertaining provincial senior decider at Pearse Stadium last Thursday.

After the opening 15 minutes of this contest, though, it looked as if Athenry VS – having overturned their great rivals in the Connacht junior final just three days previous – might cause an upset as they led five points to three.

That margin could have been greater after Ian O’Brien set up Caelom Mulry for a 15th minute goal; however, O’Brien had been hit late in the build-up and, instead of allowing the advantage, referee Christy Browne – rightly or wrongly – called play back for a free in.

From an Athenry perspective, it proved to be one of two pivotal moments of the game for, although Sean Linnane pointed the resulting placed ball, the loss of the goal seemed to knock Athenry VS for six. In contrast, St. Brigid’s finally sprung to life and, in an impressive 15 minute spell, they hit eight unanswered points.

Those scores from the lively Brian Molloy (two from play and two frees), the excellent Eanna Burke (2), Daniel Nevin and Brian Dolan – an outstanding sideline cut – catapulted the Loughrea school into a 0-11 to 0-5 lead and, while Thomas Monaghan did pick off a neat effort for Athenry VS in injury-time, it still left the challengers with a mountain to climb in the second period.

In truth, it could have been worse for Athenry VS as St. Brigid’s – playing with the wind – had created another dozen or so scoring chances in the opening period, but dropped a plethora of balls short into goalkeeper Sean Nugent’s safe hand and hit eight wides.

Credit to Athenry, though, they never rolled over and in the opening minutes of the second period, dug deep to resurrect their challenge. Monaghan converted two neat points while Linnane also chipped in with a placed ball. Slowly but surely, Athenry looked to be gaining a foothold, once again, in the contest.

However, thereafter, it all unravelled. On 41 minutes, wing-forward Brian Dolan offloaded beautifully to Jamie Ryan and the Loughrea sharpshooter made no mistake in rifling his effort to the Athenry net to put his side 1-13 to 0-9 to the good.

A minute later, Linnane and Dean Keary worked hard to win a penalty for Athenry VS but from the dead ball, Linnane blasted his 42nd minute effort at midfielder Darragh Dolan and the Man of the Match cleared the ball to safety. Just as the goal disallowed in the first half seemed to suck the life out of Athenry VS, so did this.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.