No contest as Mellows fall to heavy loss in low key decider

Liam Mellows 0-10

THIS thumping nine-point county final triumph over the defending champions at Pearse Stadium on Sunday was validation of St Thomas’ standing as the best club hurling team to emerge in Galway since Portumna’s dominant era.

Two county championships and an All-Ireland club title over the previous six seasons had already stamped St Thomas’ as an exceptional outfit, but given the innate quality in their ranks, they would have wanted more; to make sure they really stood out from the crowd.

St Thomas’ achieved that objective with surprising comfort on an unseasonable benign day in Salthill. With man of the match Darragh Burke enjoying a Roy of the Rovers 60-plus minutes, they led from start to finish thanks to the team’s best performance of the campaign.

In smashing Liam Mellows’ proud county final record – the city club had won all bar one of their previous nine appearances – to smithereens, St Thomas’ can no longer be held to ransom for failing to truly exploit the talent at their disposal.

Sunday’s county final was too one-sided to make it much good or leave an indelible memory, but that won’t bother Kevin Lally’s charges in the slightest. Ahead by seven points at the break, their stranglehold on the match was never subsequently threatened.

Having come through difficult knock-out struggles against Clarinbridge and Sarsfields, it helped to prime St Thomas’ for Sunday’s challenge. Apart from their greater slickness around the field, they matched it with an admirable work-rate and hunted in packs from the off.

St Thomas’ were like men on a mission; almost as if they had a point to prove. Whatever were their motivations – apart from the obvious one of restoring their position at the top of Galway club hurling – they simply had too much of everything for a Liam Mellows team which just never functioned to the expected degree.

They struggled to cope with the pressure St Thomas’ put them under all over the field and the number of turnovers Mellows coughed up was symbolic of players who were harried into mistakes and knocked off their stride by the intensity of the new champions.

In front of a healthy crowd of almost 8,500, not even briefly did Mellows look like putting county titles back-to-back. Some of their leaders were kept on the margins. Aonghus Callanan was replaced; David Collins ended up in the forwards; and Tadhg Haran couldn’t shake off the attentions of an immense Fintan Burke.

For more,  read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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