Little drama as Tooreen complete three-in-a-row
Tooreen’s Joe Boyle manages to get the sliothar away despite the close challenge of Ballyhaunis midfielder Eoghan Collins.
After an hour of arguing and knocking lumps out of each other, the players stood in the middle of the pitch and listened as Shane Boland began his acceptance speech. The Tooreen captain’s very first words were to remember a Ballyhaunis legend.
It’s a ferocious rivalry that exists between the two East Mayo conclaves but a respectful one as well, and Boland poignantly acknowledging that this was the first Mayo senior hurling final since the untimely passing of former Ballyhaunis and Mayo star Pierce Higgins was a demonstration of the GAA at its best.
You might even call it the highlight of the day – for the game itself wasn’t much to write home about. It lacked nothing in passion but with space at an absolute premium, free flowing hurling was, like scores, in exceptionally short supply.
Tooreen deserved their win but were asked some difficult questions by a Ballyhaunis team that even at the three-quarter stage would have believed this year’s All-Ireland intermediate finalists were prime for the taking. But the home side hit a dozen wides and only eight points so they couldn’t have exactly felt hard done by either, when seeing Boland lift the TJ Tyrrell Cup for a third year in-a-row. It’s Tooreen’s sixth time in seven seasons to win the Mayo SHC when before that, Ballyhaunis had won twelve out of fifteen – with the aforementioned Pierce Higgins at the heart of each and every win.
He'd have approved of his club’s first-half effort that for the most part had left Tooreen chasing until Daniel Huane struck the very last point, which gave the visitors a 0-6 to 0-5 lead. The younger of the Higgins boys, Keith, together with Stephen Hoban and Damien Keadin, stood out in a Ballyhaunis defence that was brilliantly frustrating a Tooreen attack that had scored 116 points in its three previous championship outings. And when the visitors reappeared for the second-half without talisman Fergal Boland, who had succumbed to an injury sustained late in the first-half, the potential for an upset was very real.
But there’s a reason why Tooreen have won four Connacht intermediate titles at the expense of Galway clubs since 2017, and those abilities would eventually come to the fore. And able to introduce Sean Regan, Gary Nolan and Brian Morley off the bench, players who have won Nicky Rackard Cup winners medals in the colours of Mayo, Tooreen’s strength in depth is something their hosts are currently unable to equal.
“It was a great win and I’m delighted for the lads. We trained really hard the last couple of weeks,” said Tooreen boss Ray Larkin afterwards.
“For the spectators it wasn’t a great game to watch. Ballyhaunis really clogged it out in the first-half, they had eight or nine in the backs and we struggled to break them down, we just didn’t get going.
“In the second-half they got the first score but we kind of pushed on from that, it opened up a small bit more for us. We’d be happy with the second-half, we lost Fergal after twenty minutes and Oisin (Greally) came off injured as well, so we’re happy to get over the game,” Larkin admitted.
His team had looked decidedly shaky early doors and Shane Boland’s radar, in particular, was askew, scoring the game’s opening point from a free but hitting no fewer than three of the five wides his side struck in the first quarter. They dropped two more balls into Ballyhaunis goalkeeper Donal O’Brien, which all came at a cost as a trio of points – a self-won Paddy Kiely free and two from play by Michael Farrell – had Ballyhaunis 0-3 to 0-1 ahead after ten minutes.
Three times Tooreen would level, first when David Kenny landed a wonderful long-range point after which Fergal Boland gave the pass for Liam Lavin to fire over. A Cormac Phillips free was negated from play by Eoin Delaney and Phillips restored the Ballyhaunis lead when shooting over from 50-metres, this time from play, but Sean Kenny’s first converted free left the scoreboard reading 0-5 apiece after 27-minutes.
The half was just entering stoppage time when Tooreen midfielder Daniel Huane curved his way in behind the full-back to delicately puck over a point from the right, giving his side the minimum advantage at the turnaround, and although a foul on Paddy Kiely allowed Cormac Phillips to tie the scores five minutes after the restart, crucially, the Blues were never again to fall behind.
Points by Sean Kenny, a free, and Shane Boland, who wriggled through a hole to fire over from 45-metres, saw Tooreen into a 0-8 to 0-6 lead after 40-minutes, and with Stephen Hoban hitting his second wide of the match, and Michael Farrell and Cormac Phillips off target in that third quarter too, Ballyhaunis were beginning to lose ground.
The deficit grew to three when Kenny Feeney hit Tooreen’s ninth point to become their seventh different scorer and while Adrian Phillips replied with a classy point over his left shoulder from long-range, a second from Feeney, a Shane Boland free and another Liam Lavin single, suddenly pushed the gap out to five points, 0-12 to 0-7, after 56-minutes.
Ballyhaunis probed a couple of times for goals, with Cormac Phillips drawing a foul that instead resulted in his pointed free, while Ciaran McDermott powered through too only for Man-of-the-Match Conal Hession to produce a wonderful covering block. And so the final word was with he who had those first words after, Shane Boland, who scored Tooreen’s thirteenth and final point to secure the club its 33rd Mayo SHC title.
“We got our tactics right, we got our set-up right, it was a ferocious battle… we just didn’t show it on the scoreboard,” admitted disappointed Ballyhaunis manager Frank Browne, who posed the next question himself.
“Was their five points in it? I don’t know really but fair play to Tooreen, we were beaten by a better team, we have absolutely no argument. We’ll do what we always do, go away and lick our wounds, keep our heads down and please God, we’ll come back and beat Tooreen next year because that’s what we have to do.”
Next up for Tooreen is a trip to Athleague next weekend to begin the defence of their Connacht intermediate title with a quarter-final clash against Roscommon champions Four Roads.
Scorers – Tooreen: Shane Boland 0-4 (2f), Liam Lavin, Sean Kenny (2f) and Kenny Feeney 0-2 each, David Kenny, Daniel Huane and Eoin Delaney 0-1 each.
Ballyhaunis: Cormac Phillips 0-4 (2f, 1 ’65), Michael Farrell 0-2, Paddy Kiely (f) and Adrian Phillips 0-1 each.
Ballyhaunis: Donal O’Brien; Jack Coyne, Stephen Hoban, Damien Keadin; Mark Phillips, Keith Higgins, Danny Hill; Ciaran McDermott, Eoghan Collins; Cormac Phillips, Adrian Phillips, Paddy Kiely; Michael Farrell, Jason Coyne, Brian Hunt. Subs: Eamonn Phillips (for Hunt ht), Eoin Ryan (for Farrell 26).
Tooreen: Bobby Douglas; John Cassidy, Michael Morley, Conal Hession; Joe Boyle, Stephen Coyne, David Kenny; Sean Kenny, Daniel Huane; Liam Lavin, Fergal Boland, Oisin Greally; Shane Boland, Kenny Feeney, Eoin Delaney. Subs: Sean Regan (for F Boland 26, inj), Gary Nolan (for Cassidy 42), Brian Morley (for Greally 50, inj).
REF: Eoin Shaughnessy (Castlebar)
