Gort pay the price for not emulating peaks of Co. final

Coolderry 3-16Gort 0-17

STEPHEN GLENNON AT THE GAELIC GROUNDS

GALWAY senior hurling champions Gort may have fought the good fight but, ultimately, they came up well short of the mark when falling to a rampant Coolderry outfit of Offaly in an entertaining All-Ireland club semi-final at the Gaelic Grounds in Limerick on Saturday.

While the sides were level on four occasions in the opening 18 minutes, significantly Gort never led at any stage or, indeed, throughout the contest. Truly, they needed to, not only from the point of view of bolstering confidence but also in terms of sowing the seed of doubt in a business-like Coolderry outfit.

The most common and simplistic assessment from many Galway patrons after the game was that ‘Gort were poor’. However, that does a great injustice to the Offaly champions, who hurled with abandon over the 60 minutes and it was a style very much reminiscent of great Offaly club and county teams of the past.

In other words, the form Coolderry, and especially centre-half back Joe Brady were in, many teams would have struggled to cope on the day . . . no more so than Gort, who, although they gave away possession far too cheaply too many times, particularly with loose handpasses, they could not be faulted for their effort or fighting spirit. 

On several occasions, the game looked to have gone from Mattie Murphy’s charges but, determinedly, they clawed their way back into contention. It was just on each occasion they did this, Gort were hit a sucker punch in the form of a Coolderry goal.

Each blow sucked a little more of the life out of a Gort team that struggled to reach the heady heights of their county championship victory over Clarinbridge last November. The first of these blows was fired on 22 minutes when Eoin Ryan dissected the Gort defence and beat Peter Cummins with what looked to be a less than powerful effort.

That score put the Leinster champions 1-7 to 0-5 ahead, after Gerry Quinn (two frees and 65), Gerard O’Donoghue and Aidan Harte all found the target in response to scores from Coolderry’s Damien Murray (play and free) Martin Corcoran and Cathal Parlon (2).

However, in a ten-minute spell, Gort were outscored 1-4 to 0-1 by the victors – the 22nd minute goal coming as a real blow to the Galway team’s hope of success. They did rally, however; Richie Cummins and Gerry Quinn (two frees) cutting the deficit to four, 1-10 to 0-9, which really was a surmountable tally for the second half.

Again, though, Coolderry showed they had this innate ability to strike at the most opportune moments and before Gort could get any momentum going in the second period, the Offaly men hit them for 1-2 in the opening five minutes.

Points from Kevin Teehan and Murray (free) extended their side’s advantage and while O’Donoghue responded with a Gort point, Coolderry delivered their second crucial blow when Parlon goaled on 35 minutes.

For more, read this week's Connacht Tribune.