Corofin crash out of Connacht title race at first hurdle

Corofin 0-10

By Kevin Egan at Tuam Stadium

Corofin remain the footballing kingpins in the Land of the Tribes, but their presence no longer casts quite as big of a shadow across the rest of Connacht. It wasn’t just that they fell short against Roscommon opposition for the second year in a row, but that they were so comprehensively outplayed by a Pádraig Pearses team that made the short trip up to Tuam Stadium unburdened by any sense of fear or trepidation.

“Corofin are an iconic club, they are known nationwide in the 32 counties, if you mention the name Corofin, people will straight away mention football,” said Pearses manager Frank Canning after the game – but the Portumna man was only leading into his real point.

“That fed into the bookies. It’s not to say that Corofin didn’t deserve to be favourites today, but not as highly-fancied as maybe the bookies were making them out to be”.

Even before the man who is now chasing an All-Ireland club football and hurling double gave his thoughts to Tribune Sport, the Gaelic football that Pádraig Pearses produced made it patently clear that they knew that this game was there to be won.

These two clubs had one previous meeting, the 2019 Connacht final which Corofin won, 1-10 to 0-7. On that occasion however, Corofin were at the peak of their powers while Pearses were just after winning their first-ever senior title in Roscommon – and even then, they never took a backwards step in the game, keeping it tight for the first 50 minutes.

This time, there was no backwards step at any point in the game.

In defence, they were ravenous and yet immaculately disciplined, with veterans Niall Carty, David Murray, and Niall Daly all winning key turnovers. In attack, Colleran and Paul Carey were ruthless and unstoppable, rattling off 1-6 between them, which included just two frees.

This would be a good tally in any game, much less a big knockout fixture like this, where their direct opponents were 2022 All-Star Liam Silke and 2024 All-Star Dylan McHugh.

Dara Ó Sé’s famous phrase, “hammer the hammer”, referring to the importance of going after the opposition’s main strength, felt appropriate.

Pictured: Corofin's Micheal Lundy looks to make his way towards goal as Padraig Pearses Niall Carty blocks his way in Tuam Stadium last weekend.  Photo: Sean Lydon.