St Thomas’ unlikely to slip up with title history in sight

FEW will dispute that the two best teams in this year’s senior championship have reached Galway hurling’s biggest day, but the paths of title holders St. Thomas’ and Clarinbridge to Sunday’s decider (Pearse Stadium, 1pm) couldn’t be any different.

St. Thomas’ stand on the cusp of history, 60 minutes away from winning four Tom Callanan Cups in succession. This feat hasn’t been achieved since the great Turloughmore six-in-row side of the 1960s, but Kenneth Burke’s charges have been building up nicely to their date with destiny.

One might have wondered after their opening game, conceding 3-13 to Killimordaly back in September. They still hit 2-24 to win by eight points, but have averaged a winning margin of 15.5 points since.

They sent title contenders Liam Mellows out of the championship in Round 2 (2-21 to 0-15) before their one tight battle against Cappataggle (0-17 to 1-13) when their qualification was already secured.

After being given an early scare by a fearless Kilconieron outfit playing with abandon in the quarter-final at Duggan Park, St. Thomas’ regrouped to blitz last year’s intermediate winners 3-29 to 1-9.

Then there was Gort! Two semi-final postponements due to Covid-19 issues led to uncertainty, but the county champions showed their class off the field, assisting a second delay to ensure the competition would be settled on the field.

One will wonder how Gort’s preparations were affected as they had displayed greater quality in their preceding games, but the hold-up only appeared to galvanise their opponents. St. Thomas tore into them at Pearse Stadium in trouncing their south Galway rivals on a 4-20 to 0-9 scoreline – three third quarter goals devastating their neighbours.

Goalkeeper Gerald Kelly and his defensive sextet (David Sherry, Fintan Burke, Cian Mahony, Evan Duggan, Shane Cooney and Cathal Burke) have only conceded two goals since the Killimordaly match. Overall, their concession rate is less than 10 points per game.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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