St Thomas’ survive a major fright from fired-up Larkins

St Thomas’ 0-16

Tommy Larkins 0-14

JOHN FALLON at Kenny Park

IT’S hard not to feel sorry for Tommy Larkins but sympathy is the last thing the men from Woodford and Ballinakill will want this week after squandering a glorious opportunity of making it to their first county senior semi-final since 1982 and, in the process, send the reigning champions crashing out.

Tommy Larkins really needed this sort of scalp to bolster the great work of recent seasons but when it came to the crunch at Kenny Park in Athenry on Saturday, they lacked the punch to finish the job and duly bowed out of the title race.

St Thomas’ will empathise with them for this was the sort of game they used to regularly lose before they finally made the breakthrough, but three successful county final appearances in seven seasons has made them streetwise and battle-hardened.

And when it came to leaning on that experience, their two big county men David Burke and Conor Cooney duly obliged with telling contributions as they came from three points down with nine minutes remaining to outscore Tommy Larkins by 0-6 to 0-1 in the closing stages and advance to a semi-final meeting with Turloughmore.

Teams that enjoy multiple successes over several years only manage to do it by rebuilding and this win wasn’t all about the old guard with Oisin Flannery, an All-Ireland minor winner last year, making a big contribution for St Thomas’.

His lightning pace over the first few yards created the space for him to shoot three excellent points from play, the only forward on either side to manage more than a solitary score that wasn’t from a placed ball.

Flannery was well able to mind himself as well in a game with far too much trench warfare, but while the surface at Kenny Park was pristine, the bounce is gone out of the ball at this sodden time of year and the game was punctured by endless frees.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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