St. Thomas’ back in business after big group victory

Date Published: {J}

St. Thomas’ 5-16

Turloughmore 1-14

Darren Kelly

in Athenry

ST. Thomas’ produced a tour de force performance last Saturday to relaunch their senior hurling championship campaign with five goals against a Turloughmore side who’ll be soul searching again if they are to avoid the relegation dogfight.

Those attending Kenny Park may have expected Portumna to produce a sizeable victory in the first game of a double header, but nobody suspected the Kilchreest/Peterswell would do even better after their first day defeat to Sarsfields.

For Turloughmore, they started well and maintained the battle in the first half but let the game seriously slip them by after the restart and now must beat reigning All-Ireland champions Clarinbridge or Sarsfields to avoid the relegation play-offs.

Brendan Holland’s Turloughmore side made the better start and registered points from Daithi Burke, Matthew Keating and Brian Murphy by the eighth minute. But James Regan’s speculative effort for St. Thomas’ 60 seconds earlier ensured parity as his shot dipped into the net to leave the score, 1-0 to 0-3.

After allowing their opponents control the tempo for the first 10 minutes, St. Thomas’ dominated the middle part of the half and their second goal inspired an exhibition of score taking to move clear.

Brendan Burke’s long low ball in the 12th minute wasn’t dealt with by Paul Dullaghan as the St. Thomas’ attack applied the pressure. Eventually, the waiting Kenneth Burke, on the 20 metre line, took the sliothar and drove to the net for a three point lead.

Suddenly, St. Thomas’ seized the initiative and got four white flags within two minutes. Conor Cooney on the left, Bernard Burke on the right and Gerald Murray through the middle all scored from distance before Darragh Burke surpassed that with one from 90 yards to make it 2-4 to 0-3. Murphy tried to settle Turloughmore with a free but Darragh and David Burke, along with a Cooney placed ball, gave St. Thomas’ a 2-7 to 0-4 lead on 22 minutes.

St. Thomas’ should have pushed on with the momentum and the breeze before the break but with their forwards coming out too deep, attacks were quickly cleared and Turloughmore battled back to reduce the deficit to five. Murphy got the first two from play and a free, Darren O’Shaughnessy added two more while a Keating effort concluded their half trailing by just 2-8 to 0-9 with Richie Murray replying for St. Thomas’.

The contest was perfectly poised but Turloughmore never responded as St. Thomas’ moved up the gears upon the restart. Despite missing three frees, Cooney pointed from play in the fourth minute to stretch the lead to six. Murray added another before points from Cooney and David Burke made it 2-12 to 0-9 by the 39th minute.

Turloughmore can be thankful Regan didn’t get a penalty when he went to ground a minute beforehand but after Keating reduced the deficit with his third point, there was no reprieve on the three quarter mark when corner forward Anthony Kelly received a long low ball before attacking goal and registering a three-pointer to decide this contest.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.