St Thomas’ have a clean bill of health for big clash with Ballyea of Clare
FOUR years on from their last All-Ireland senior club hurling success, St. Thomas’ embark on another exciting adventure when they face Munster champions Ballyea in Saturday’s semi-final at Semple Stadium (5pm).
With minor injuries to Donal Cooney, Darragh Burke, Anthony Kelly, James Regan and Eanna Burke having all cleared up in the past week, St. Thomas’ should have a full squad to choose from ahead of this mouth-watering fixture.
“We have no serious injury,” confirms St. Thomas’ boss John Burke. “They were knocks that you just had to give a few days’ rest to. We gave everyone a chance to get right. We were supposed to play Tipperary (in a challenge recently) but we didn’t go with it because we would be tight on numbers.”
Having already contested an All-Ireland semi-final in the Spring of 2013 – on route to claiming a first ever All-Ireland club title on St. Patrick’s Day – St. Thomas’ have some experience of managing their playing resources.
“It probably has helped. The last time the county final was a good bit later and then the boys were also playing U-21 that time. They actually played the U-21 final just before Christmas, back in 2012, so they got no break at all back then.
“It has helped us in organising things and planning things out coming up to the next day. But, look it, you just prepare as good as you can and you are hoping on the day that the lads will perform. That is what it is about.”
Certainly, when it came to peaking in 2016, St. Thomas’ got it bang on, particularly given they had struggled badly in the group stages of the championship, losing three of their five fixtures. Those defeats were to then reigning champions Sarsfields (1-18 to 1-15), Loughrea (0-14 to 1-10) and Gort (1-20 to 1-14).
It was their group win over Castlegar, 1-19 to 4-9, that would prove to be crucial in the end as their 1-23 to 0-9 victory over Turloughmore left them level on points with Cashel and St. Thomas’ went through to the knockout stages on the head-to-head. It was that close.
In the preliminary quarter-final and quarter-final, St. Thomas defeated Beagh (0-19 to 0-17) and Portumna (2-25 to 4-15) respectively before accounting for Loughrea (1-15 to 0-10) in the county semi-final and their neighbours Gort, 1-11 to 0-10, in the decider.
For more, read this week’s Galway City Tribune.