Tooreen see off challenge of London champions
Tooreen’s Stephen Coyne breaks away from St. Gabriel’s Fiachra Fitzpatrick during the AIB Connacht GAA Intermediate Hurling Championship semi-final at Dr. Hyde Park, Roscommon, last Sunday. Pictures: David Farrell Photography
Tooreen’s quest for a fifth consecutive Connacht intermediate hurling championship took a giant step forward after seeing off the challenge of London champions St Gabriels’s in Hyde Park last Sunday afternoon.
The game had a similar feel to Tooreen’s quarter-final victory over Four Roads a fortnight previously. A great start, concession of a sloppy goal, a slow third quarter and a superb second half performance.
Despite the ten-point win, St Gabriel’s were still on the Blue Devils’s coattails with five minutes to go but a superb save by Tooreen goalkeeper Bobby Douglas to deny Danny Coyne a second goal ended their hopes. Tooreen racked up the points late on to ease to victory, but Ray Larkin and his backroom will still have concerns ahead of the Connacht final against Galway champions Tynagh-Abbey/Duniry.
One of those will be the amount of wides over the course, striking ten alone in the first half. That did not appear on the cards as, despite playing against the wind, they raced into a 0-5 to 0-0 lead inside eight minutes through a trio by Shane Boland, one free, and two from Liam Lavin. They almost had a goal with a simple but devastating move. Bobby Douglas picked out Eoin Delaney, who in turn found Fergal Boland but the dual star’s strike from a narrow angle was saved by St Gabriel’s goalkeeper Padraig Collins.
After their early scoring burst, the wides began to rack up and by the 20th minute mark, Gabriel’s had hit the three on the spin through Rory Lodge and two efforts, one free, by captain Sean Glynn.
Eoin Delaney and Danny Coyne traded points, the latter’s shot appearing to have gone wide but was waved over via the white flag of the umpire, and Tooreen’s Ciaran Finn kept the gap at three with 24 minutes played.
Another Glynn free brought it back to two when a loose pass inside the Tooreen backline was pounced on by Fiachra Fitzpatrick before laying it off to Danny Coyne for a simple finish into the net to put Gabriel’s in front.
Tooreen went back ahead through points by Fergal Boland and Sean Kenny but a late pair by Conor O’Connell saw Gabriel’s lead by the minimum, 1-7 to 0-9, at the change of ends.
Danny Coyne’s opening point of the second half for Gabriel’s was their last for 19 minutes, however, as Tooreen would hit 1-6 without reply.
Shane and Fergal Boland drew the teams level for a third time, and Eoin Delaney’s point on 35 minutes would put Tooreen into a lead they would not surrender. Kenny Feeney extended their lead with a point but one sensed a goal was needed for Tooreen and that is what they delivered on 43 minutes. Eoin Delaney started the move and played it off to Shane Boland and while the Tooreen captain could not get his shot away, he offered it back to Delaney to smash it past Collins.
A monster free from Sean Kenny and a single by Kenny Feeney made it 1-15 to 1-8 before a Sean Glynn free stopped the rot for Gabriel’s. Shane Boland replied with a free of his own, but the next three scores came from the men in maroon as Eoin Kelly, Andrew Curtin and Conor O’Carroll made it a four-point game.
Coyne, however, would be denied his second major when Douglas blocked his strike and Tooreen would rattle of the last six points of the game through two apiece by Fergal and Shane Boland, a trademark Bobby Douglas free inside his own 45’ and a point from Eoin Delaney to move Tooreen 60 minutes away from another historic achievement.
