Ruthless Corofin demolish hapless Cortoon Shamrocks

Cortoon Shamrocks 0-6

Even without a slew of first team players, Corofin still managed to make it look ridiculously easy last Wednesday night.

The reigning county and All-Ireland champions lined up without Ciarán McGrath, Kieran Fitzgerald, Dylan Wall, Liam Silke, Daithí Burke, Michael Farragher and Ian Burke, but Cortoon Shamrocks still couldn’t get anywhere near them as the reigning county and All-Ireland club champions ran out 25-point winners.

Corofin’s dominance of the championship is such that the margin of victory isn’t even that surprising. Of the 10 games Corofin have played in the county championship since the start of 2017, they have won eight of them by a margin of at least 10 points. There will be tougher tests to come for Kevin O’Brien’s side later in the year, but it would be no shock if there were one or two more drubbings before then.

To be fair to Cortoon, they kept Corofin to just 1-5 in the opening half, something most teams would be pleased with. Unfortunately, they were blown away in the second. One of Corofin’s main attributes is their ruthlessness and even with the tie well and truly wrapped up, they still ran in three goals in the last 90 seconds of the match.

It was clear from fairly early on that Cortoon were in for a tough evening. Paul Bradley’s side kicked five wides in a row before they got their first score in the 14th minute, by which time Corofin had already racked up 1-3.

It took Corofin until the fifth minute to open their account through Micheál Lundy but they’re weren’t long in adding to it. They were straight back on the attack after the restart with Ronan Steede running straight through from the 65 before playing a one-two with Jason Leonard on the edge of the square and flicking the return pass into the net.

A free from Leonard and another nice point from Steede pushed Corofin six points ahead before Cathal Mulryan got Cortoon’s opening score after being set up by David Warde. A Martin Boyle free soon after reduced the deficit to four soon after but Darragh Silke got his first score of the day in the 20th minute to leave Corofin 1-4 to 0-2 ahead.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.