Late points take spoils for Gort
Date Published: {J}
Gort 1-19Turloughmore 2-13
IT took three well executed points without reply in injury time for Gort to get their 2010 championship campaign off to a winning start when seeing-off the spirited challenge of Turloughmore in an exciting tussle at Loughrea on Sunday evening.
Turloughmore will be gutted by this result – although heartened by the gutsy performance – because for their second group B match in a row this year, they were outgunned in the dying minutes when a share of the spoils seemed inevitable.
The sides were level on no less than eight occasions throughout and Adrian Mooney’s men matched Gort point for point in the final ten minutes of normal time when this clash had ‘stalemate’ written all over it.
But Turloughmore’s staying power – which came up short just against St Thomas’ two weekends ago when they were pipped by two late scores – was their downfall once again as Gort finished the stronger with Paul Killilea, Martin Nestor and Richie Cummins raising three white flags in quick succession to snatch the group points.
Cummins, who had been well marshalled by county minor Matthew Keating for long spells, showed his class when coming good when it mattered – the teenager twice plucked the sliotar from the sky in the closing stages and with crisp strikes landed two points that looked like they would inspire Gort to victory.
Credit to Turloughmore, though, they bounced back on both occasions and worked their way up the field, earned two frees that were duly converted by the deadly accurate Brian Murphy, who tallied 0-9 on the day, but they just ran out of steam when Killilea nudged Gort ahead again on the stroke of full-time.
When Gort goaled through Richie Cummins after just ten seconds of the throw-in – it was a nightmare start for the underdogs, who seemed to be asleep when the young livewire was quickest to react and lifted the sliotar with a ground stroke that sailed past ‘keeper Paul Dullaghan.
But Turloughmore’s heads didn’t drop and they used the strong wind advantage to eke their way back into the match with Murphy landing a few long-range points before they took the lead with an opportunistic goal midway through the half.
For more, read this week's Connacht Tribune.