Champions cruise into ninth final in 11 years with ease

Cortoon Shamrock’s 0-7

Corofin sailed into the Galway senior club football championship final after walloping Cortoon Shamrock’s at Tuam Stadium on Sunday.

The winners will appear in their ninth final in 11 years on Sunday week when they face Mountbellew/Moylough, who beat Salthill/Knocknacarra in the other semi-final.

Corofin had 10 points to spare over a bitterly disappointing Cortoon outfit that crashed spectacularly after half-time. The scoreline sounds impressive – and in fairness it is – but Corofin’s performance was anything but.

The All-Ireland champions appear a shadow of the side that reigned supreme on St Patrick’s Day – they looked tired and lacked that special spark and zeal that lit up last year’s campaign.

Cortoon’s inept second-half display was bordering on embarrassing but the real worrying story in all of this is the inescapable fact that the standard of club football in the county has nosedived. Or maybe it has been poor for quite some time and it’s just that the exception to that rule in recent seasons, Corofin, are slipping back towards the chasing pack of mediocrity.

They’re still the best – and favourites to win the Frank Fox for an historic three-in-a-row – but just not near as good as they once were.

This semi-final was very low on entertainment value; and worse still, the general standard of play was awful at times with both teams making elementary errors and ill-judged decision making. A championship intensity was missing, too, and that lent itself to an atmosphere more fitting of an FBD League match in January.

Corofin are operating at least 30% or 40% of the performance levels reached in their 2014 county championship triumphs and still they are capable of hammering Cortoon, who are supposed to be a top-four team.

In fairness to Corofin they didn’t need to reach last year’s heights because Cortoon, after half-time, were so devoid of belief that they could win they failed to show-up.

Pity Galway senior football manager, Kevin Walsh, who was in Tuam to scout new players for next season – there weren’t any in this match sticking their hands up for inclusion in the county set-up.

It wasn’t all bad. Form is temporary, class is permanent, and Corofin certainly do have classy players that produced the goods when needed.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.