AIB ALL-IRELAND CLUB SF CHAMPIONSHIP SEMI-FINAL: St Gall's 1-15 Corofin 1-11 after extra-time:EVENTUALLY THE pre-match consensus was correct. St Gall's, busily spinning their micro-patterns and kicking the vital scores, were too good for a battling Corofin and their excellent defence. But as a narrative that's as complete as saying that Hamlet saw a ghost and killed himself.
Saturday night’s AIB All-Ireland club football semi-final took the crowd’s floodlit gaze on an absorbing journey through a range of possibilities after 80 minutes, before the Belfast club finally stamped their authority to reach the final for a much cherished second chance at the title they came close to taking from Corofin’s 2006 predecessors, Salthill.
The football wasn’t always riveting – too claustrophobic and error-strewn at times – but the outcome was in doubt until the closing minutes of extra-time and there was undeniable quality about the winners, summed up by the intricate movement that set up corne-back Paul Veronica, steaming up field after 78 minutes, to push Gall’s two ahead for the first time in over half an hour.
Broadly speaking the first hour was a tale of two halves. In the opening 30 minutes St Gall’s imposed their favoured style on the match, moving the ball quickly and methodically into attacking positions and taking scores. Afterwards both centrefielder Aodhán Gallagher and CJ McGourty paid tribute to the influence of sevens football on their ability to retain possession and build movements in tight situations.
It was McGourty’s free-taking that was the team’s principal source of scores and his general play was also bright and menacing but he was well supported by the other McGourty’s, Kevin who won a number of frees and Kieran who orchestrated things from centre forward – although a spell of woeful finishing in the second half did much to keep the Galway champions in the match.
With just a minute or so left on the clock before the break, the match looked settled with the Ulster champions 1-5 to 0-2 ahead. The goal had come from an unfortunate error by Corofin’s Tony Goggins, who had done very well to tidy up an attack only to have his clearing hand pass blocked by Kevin McGourty, who nipped in and floated a pass across goal for brother CJ to fist to the net.
But in the 29th minute came the first of the match’s dramatic turning points: Corofin captain Kieran Comer sidled in under Alan O’Donovan’s toppling high ball to touch to the net amidst strong suspicions of a square-ball infringement. It was enough to revive the contest.
The Galway side had started poorly, missing a litany of chances and apparently suffering from the decision to leave Comer on free-taking instead of regular dead-ball taker Alan O’Donovan. When the latter was eventually called on after a couple of misses by the captain he skewed the effort well wide. Then in the second quarter Corofin steadied. Alan Burke was switched back onto CJ McGourty on whom Cathal Silke had struggled and centrefield took a grip on proceedings, winning nine of the half’s closing 10 kick-outs after finding the going difficult against Aodhán Gallagher and Seán Burke in the opening phases.
On the re-start Gall’s looked as if they were re-imposing themselves with an early point from Seán Kelly, who was excellent throughout at wing back and who fittingly kicked the last score of the evening to seal a four-point win.
Two frees in quick succession gave Corofin traction and although Kevin McGourty extended the lead, O’Donovan discovered his scoring touch with a point from play and a great long-range free. The Connacht champions’ improved accuracy took their wides’ total from a negligent seven in the first half down to none in the second. Joe Canney’s pace caused trouble for Gall’s as did the frequently deployed high ball. Then with 12 minutes to go the Belfast team lost a man with Anto Healy picking up a second yellow. They never fell behind though with CJ McGourty restoring the lead on the first two occasions that Corofin levelled.
In injury-time Gary Sice, cleverly put in space by Gary Delaney’s flick, kicked the point that took the match to extra-time.
The Galway wing back’s part in the drama wasn’t over. At the start of the additional 20 minutes Gall’s were able to field a full complement again and the anomaly was starkly illustrated when Sice picked up a second yellow three minutes into extra-time and the playing imbalance was reversed.
Centrefielder Gallagher said St Gall’s had needed to reimpose themselves in extra-time.
“Lenny (Harbinson, manager) just said: ‘put up or shut up’. We’d put ourselves in this situation because we weren’t playing well. It wasn’t just Lenny – there’s a lot of smart, mature players on this team and we thought about what we needed to do and how we needed to set out our stall.
“We just went back to playing the game we’d played in the first half – we’d lost our way a bit in the second half – trying to put as much pressure on them up front as we could.”
Losing manager Gerry Keane was magnanimous: “It was an incredible game. I thought our own guys really stood up to the task in the second half of normal time. It was a performance that would win many a game.
“Unfortunately, the work-rate of the Gall’s guys and their men breaking forward, we hadn’t the answer to that. Overall, I felt we were in with a real chance of getting a result towards the end of normal time. Things just didn’t happen for us.
“We probably missed a few too many chances in the first-half and we were three points down at half-time when we felt we could have been three points up. That told in the end. We paid the price for that.”
ST GALL'S: Ronan Gallagher; P Veronica (0-1), A McClean, C Brady (capt); M Kelly, A Healy, S Kelly (0-2); A Gallagher, S Burke (0-1); T O'Neill, Kieran McGourty (0-1), Kevin McGourty (0-1); CJ McGourty (1-9, eight frees), Rory Gallagher, K Niblock. Subs:K Stewart for Rory Gallagher (half-time), M McRory for Burke (70 mins), S Kennedy for Healy (70 mins), S Burns for O'Neill (73 mins), C Gallagher for Niblock (76 mins).
COROFIN: D Morris (0-1); K McGrath, K Fitzgerald, C Silke; A Burke, D Burke, G Sice (0-1); G Higgins, A Donnellan; M Farragher, R Steede, T Goggins; J Canney, A O'Donovan (0-3, two frees), K Comer (capt; 1-6, five points frees). Subs:S Monaghan for Silke (half-time), G Delaney for Goggins (48 mins), K Murphy for Donnellan (56 mins), J Burke for Farragher (60 mins), B Power for Monaghan (70 mins), A Donnellan for Murphy (79 mins).
Referee: Cormac Reilly (Meath).
