Sarsfields must be wary of threat posed by Glens men

ATHENRY, Glenmore, Mount Sion, Na Piarsaigh, Portumna, Crumlin (Dublin), Patrickswell  and Moycarkey Borris of Tipperary have one thing in common . . . they all lost All-Ireland Club hurling semi-finals to Antrim teams. Some serious sides have fallen by the wayside at the penultimate stage of the championship and it would be doing a huge injustice to our counterparts from the Glens to suggest complacency was the big factor in those results.

Furthermore, it took St. Thomas’ two attempts to overcome Loughgiel Shamrocks in the semi-final in February of 2013, while Sarsfields also had to resort to a replay to get the better of Dunloy in the spring of 1998. In most of those semi-finals when the Antrim champions came out on top, they deserved to carry the day and one suspects their latest title holders Cushendall will be lacking nothing in terms of effort and passion on Saturday.

That prospect, however, has probably less to do with upholding the county’s tradition of springing surprises in All-Ireland semi-finals, but rather Cushendall’s own desire to end reach a first ever final having lost all their previous eight appearances at this stage of the championship. The closest Cushendall have got to making Croke Park on St Patrick’s Day was when they lost a replay to St. Joseph’s of Clare in 2000. Three years earlier, Cushendall came within a point of another Banner team, Wolfe Tones.

But how good are the club’s latest standard bearers? It took a late goal from Conor Carson to edge out Ballycastle in the county final, but Cushendall had been trailing by nine points with only 13 minutes remaining. They also diced with disaster in the provincial decider the following month when edging out Slaughneil of Derry by a point after extra time (1-24 to 3-17) with the accuracy of Antrim player Neil McManus critical to the outcome.

That overall level of form suggests Cushendall may be nothing exceptional, but new Galway champions Sarsfields must still on their guard, especially as Saturday’s semi-final is going ahead in Pairic Tailteann, Navan, a venue with which they would have no familiarity with. The New Inn/Bullaun men were obviously the surprise packets of last year’s county championship, ensuring this is still a relatively inexperienced team.

Yet the manner in which Sarsfields turned themselves inside out in the knock out stages of the title race compared to the club’s final two group outings – a really fortunate win over Tynagh/Abbey-Duniry and that heavy loss to Loughrea – was nothing short of remarkable. Pearses, their quarter-final opponents, were actually marginal favourites to beat them, but Sarsfields hit the ground running with Noel Kelly proving a big handful up front.

That ultimately comfortable victory hardly suggested that they were county title winning material and when they got off to a bad start against holders Gort in the subsequent semi-final, it was difficult to avoid the impression that Sarsfields were in over their heads. But the challengers initially displayed tremendous grit to haul themselves back into contention before finishing in a blaze of glory to carry the day on a 0-21 to 0-17 scoreline.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.