Glenhest impress on the road
Ball in net! Shane Finnerty’s corner curls in past the Ballinrobe defence to put Glenhest in front. Picture: John Corless
On this performance, Glenhest Rovers will trouble most teams in this year’s Super League. On Saturday evening, they overpowered Ballinrobe to go top of the table, with an early contender for goal of the season thrown in for good measure.
“It was a satisfying win,” manager Stephen McLoughlin told the . “It was a very good performance. I thought we were the better team. We set a good tempo; we played good football. We created a lot of the chances and fully deserved the win.”
Glenhest are a big strong team and they can play football. They completely dominated the first forty minutes, pinning Ballinrobe back and forcing them to make aimless clearances in an effort to get breathing space. Glenhest were on top in midfield and moved forward in waves to lay siege on the Ballinrobe goal.
Shane Finnerty swung a corner directly to the net on 29 minutes to claim the first goal of the match and of the new season. The corner came from sustained pressure, and Finnerty’s effort went in at the top of the far post, to record Glenhest’s superiority.
Ballinrobe’s first shot came from Seán Hughes after 39 minutes when he fired just outside the Glenhest post. At that stage, Eoin McNulty, Shane Finnerty, Ciaran McCormack, Connor McCarthy, Eoghan Wright and Paddy Mulchrone had shots on the Ballinrobe goal. In truth, they should have the game closed out at that stage.
Rovers pressed again from the restart and Eoin McNulty was unlucky with a header. Adrian Rowland sent one over, and Connor McCarthy had one saved, before Levi Barrett finished Finnerty’s corner on 56 minutes to double the lead. But Barrett was to go one better when he spotted that Ballinrobe ’keeper Connal Doran was off his line, and fired from 70 metres out, to put the visitors 3-0 up.
It was a spectacular strike, and it will take something really special to beat it for the goal of the season award.
With the game won, Glenhest made changes, and Ballinrobe too, freshened up their line-up. The combination of all this saw an improved performance from the hosts and they were rewarded when Liam Kilcullen finished well, after Óisin Connolly knocked a corner into his path to reduce the deficit. But that was as good as it got for the Robesiders and they will have to improve enormously on this performance, to have any hope of making the top half when the league is divided after the first round of fixtures is completed.
Glenhest, on the other hand, look better than they did last season when they reached their highest-ever final placing in the League when they were third behind Castlebar Celtic and Westport United. They will have the chance to test themselves against Celtic in a couple of weeks’ time.
Connor McCarthy was outstanding on Saturday. He won the ball in tight situations, made space, held it up and, when the time was right, either took a shot or passed to a teammate in a better position. Shane Finnerty was in top form too, on the wing, and Cathal Chambers, back from a two-year break in the USA, was excellent in midfield.
Ballinrobe tried their best. Óisin Connolly, recovering from cracked ribs, stood out at the heart of a defence that badly missed the unavailable Aaron McDonnell.
“Ultimately, we want to be in that top five after nine games, and then we'll see where we go after that,” McLoughlin said. “But we're not going to lose our heads or anything like that. This is one game. It's a long year. So the objective is to just try and win as many of those first nine games as we can and see where that leaves us at the end of it.”
Paddy Mulchrone, the Glenhest captain said it was a comfortable enough win in the end. “We’re delighted with the performance. Anytime you come up here to The Green, it's never an easy place to come to. So, comfortable enough, happy getting out of here with three points.”
Ballinrobe Town: Conall Doran; Seán Hughes, Óisin Connolly, Gillen Jennings, Simon Boyle; Jonathan Lawrence, Gary Mellett Connolly, Seán Vahey; Ben Place, Liam Kilcullen, Nico Petrovic. Subs: Mairton Dos Santos (for Petrovic 58), Jesper Frisch (for Vahey 68), Jamie O’Donnell (for G Mellett Connolly 70).
Glenhest Rovers: Eoghan McManamon; Levi Barrett, Adrian Rowland, Eoin McNulty, Ciaran McCormack; Shane Finnerty, Chris Rowland, Cathal Chambers, Eoin Wright; Connor McCarthy, Paddy Mulchrone. Subs: Darren Boyle (for Wright 62), Paul McLoughlin (for Chambers 68), Cillian Murphy (for Mulchrone 74).
REF: Tom Jennings.
