Little between sides as title race enters semi-final stage

Lally suffered a cruciate injury in the Tribesmen’s National League game against Dublin and, originally, it was believed he would be out for the rest of the year. However, Lally has worked hard on the road to recovery and, having returned to some running last month, lined out for the club in a challenge recently.

Lally’s return represents a major boost to Gort – and to Galway – and considerably strengthens the 2014 county champions’ hand going into a semi-final clash against Craughwell. Indeed, Gort mentor Mike Finn outlines Gort will be at full strength for this one.

In the other semi-final, former All-Ireland champions St Thomas’ will meet a Loughrea outfit that has already posted a one-point victory, 0-14 to 1-10, over their neighbours in the group stages. However, since then, St Thomas’ have reinvented their side, with the versatile Eanna Burke and James Regan shoring up their defence, and defender Darragh Burke experiencing a new lease of life in the forwards.

In terms of putting scores on the board, there has been little between the sides in this campaign, the four teams averaging between 1-17 to 1-19 a game. Equally, there has been nothing between in what they have conceded either, again, ranging from 1-14 to 1-17.

In other words, these two semi-finals should go right down to the wire.

SUNDAY

Craughwell v Gort

(Kenny Park, Athenry 2pm)

If there was one area of concern for Gort in their quarter-final win over Sarsfields, it was the lack of goal chances they created, according to mentor Mike Finn, who, in addition to the return of Greg Lally, says Gort will also have defender Tadgh Linnane (hamstring) available for this one.

“We have been scoring goals but the one big critique we had of ourselves after the Sarsfields match was that we only took one shot on Ciaran Dolan in the whole game. We didn’t have enough shots on goal and that would be a thing we have worked on the last few weeks,” says Finn.

Although Gort may be looking to improve their conversion rate when it comes to goals, they still have put away 10 of them in the championship, of which Paul Killilea has scored four. Jason Grealish, Wayne Walsh, Richie Cummins and Mike Mullins have accounted for the rest.

At the back, Gort have also had some impressive performers in goalkeeper Gavin Lally, Mark McMahon, Michael Cummins, Aidan Harte, Sylvie Óg Linnane, Jack Grealish, and Pakie Lally at various stages. In all, they have used 10 players defence, excluding Greg Lally, so they are not short of options in this area.

For more, read this week’s Galway City Tribune.