Gort blast county title warning in big victory

Gort’s Richie Cummins, pictured in action against Portumna's Andy Smith, was in top form in Sunday's senior hurling championship group win over Sarsfields.

placeholder image — Gort’s Richie Cummins, pictured in action against Portumna's Andy Smith, was in top form in Sunday's senior hurling championship group win over Sarsfields.

Gort 1-24

Sarsfields 0-14

2014 senior hurling champions and 2017 finalists Gort sent out a message of intent to the rest of their title rivals with a comprehensive 13-point victory over 2015 winners Sarsfields in this one-sided third round SHC clash at Kenny Park, Athenry on Sunday.

With victories over Portumna and Mullagh in the earlier rounds, Sarsfields looked like a team rediscovering their form of three years ago but that was turned on its head after the opening quarter when they trailed Gort by eight points to one.

Gort, quite simply, were like a greyhound that was just let off the lead in the opening half and the clinical manner in which they tore into this contest garnered everyone’s attention from the off. There was no let up as Gort led 0-14 to 0-5 at half-time.

Sarsfields did rally briefly after the interval with four unanswered points but Gort kicked back into gear not long after and the game was already over as a contest by the time Kaelen Higgins struck for the game’s only goal on 52 minutes.

The tone, though, really was set early on with no less than seven Gort players getting on the scoresheet. To the fore was Richie Cummins with five points from play and his impish offering suggested that he may be a player returning to his best. It was vintage Cummins.

Centre-half back Greg Lally, as he tends to do, shot three points in that opening 30 minutes (two frees and one from play) and over the course of the hour he would convert two more long range placed balls to finish with a personal tally of five points.

Aiden Helebert, too, was in fine form, converting four frees and registering two from play while Aidan Harte was even more impressive by shooting four points from play, three in the second half. All over, Gort had thrown the shackles off.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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