St Brigid's 0-13 Coolera-Strandhill 1-03
There was no mistaking the gulf in class between St Brigid’s and Coolera-Strandhill in this afternoon’s Connacht SFC quarter-final as the Roscommon champions made short work of their Sligo counterparts, holding them scoreless for 40 minutes before the seasiders salvaged some pride in the latter stages of the game.
Jerome Stack’s troops have gathered momentum over the course of the season and were considered by many to be the most likely threat to Corofin in this Connacht championship, but their chances of living out that ambition will depend heavily on an injury to Brian Stack, who was carried off with a knee injury early in the second half.
The All-Star nominee has been outstanding all year and he continued that form today, completely shutting down Sligo and Coolera-Strandhill talisman Niall Murphy.
Sligo senior stars Murphy, Keelan Cawley and Peter Laffey all struggled to make an impression on this tie, and with U-20 star Mark McDaniel forced out of the game after an injury in the warm-up, Coolera-Strandhill didn’t have the firepower to compete with their opponents.
Even so, to lose the first half by 0-9 to no score would have grated with the visiting side.
Mercurial inside forward Ben O’Carroll ran riot in the early stages with a string of outstanding points, terrorising the Coolera-Strandhill defence. Having been held scoreless from play in the county final – albeit with two direct man-markers for company that day – the Roscommon county attacker was afforded a much easier ride today and he made hay, kicking five of his six points in the first half.
The home side were wind-assisted in that opening half, but there was so much more to their play than that. Eddie Nolan and Shane Cunnane made some excellent catches at midfield, while Cunnane, Ruaidhrí Fallon and Pearse Frost also demonstrated some immaculately crisp tackling, dispossessing Coolera-Strandhill players over and over again.
Niall Murphy was guilty of two bad misses for the Sligo champions in the opening half but other than that it was one-way traffic, with Conor Hand, Bobby Nugent and Eddie Nolan also getting in on the act with some outstanding first-half points.
That lead was pushed out to ten when O’Carroll won and converted a free four minutes into the second half, but Coolera-Strandhill dug their heels in from there, starting with an Adam Higgins effort in the 40th minute, curled over with his right foot from 35 metres out.
Even then, St Brigid’s reply was immediate from Bobby Nugent, but there was no doubting that the zip was gone out of the South Roscommon club at this stage. A serious injury meant Stack, who landed awkwardly after breaking a high ball away from Niall Murphy, was carried off the pitch, and from then on, it was a case of containment football, with occasional breaks out of defence.
Coolera-Strandhill struck for points from Seán Taylor and Keelan Cawley, while Leo Doherty found the net after catching a high ball in traffic and squeezing a daisy cutter of a shot inside Cormac Sheehy’s far post, but even then Brigid’s comfortably closed out the game, with joint captain Paul McGrath concluding the scoring deep in stoppage time.
St Brigid’s: Cormac Sheehy; Seán Trundle, Brian Stack, Pearse Frost; Ronan Stack, Alan Daly, Ruaidhrí Fallon; Eddie Nolan (0-01), Shane Cunnane; Robbie Dolan, Paul McGrath (0-01), Conor Hand (0-02); Ben O’Carroll (0-06, 0-02 frees), Ciarán Sugrue, Bobby Nugent (0-02).
Subs: Micheál Sugrue for Trundle (half-time), Luke Griselain for B Stack (44), Brian Derwin for Hand (47), Brian O’Hara Duggan for Fallon (49), John Cunningham (0-01) for Dolan (55).
Coolera-Strandhill: Keelan Harte; Luke Bree, Seán Taylor (0-01), Jonathan Cassidy; Adam Higgins (0-01), Ross O’Carroll, Ross Doherty; Kevin Banks, Peter Laffey; Leo Doherty (1-00), Keelan Cawley (0-01), Seán Murphy; Jaime Walsh, Niall Murphy, Oran McDonagh.
Subs: Conor Burke for Walsh (half-time), Donagh Flynn for McDonagh (45), Kevin Harte for Higgins (60+3), Eoin Comerford for R Doherty (60+3), Ben Cawley for Bree (60+3).
Referee: Thomas Murphy (Galway)
