Point made ..Eanna & Saints are just great
WONDER SCORE SEALS GLORY FOR THOMAS’
St Thomas’ (Gal)
O’loughlin Gaels (Kk)
AIB All-ireland SHC club final
BY
WHERE to begin with this barnburner of a club hurling final? Eanna Burke’s stunning matchwinning point is probably the best place.
That was a score worthy of winning any All-ireland as the full-forward, just 17 when St Thomas’ won their previous title in 2013, picked the ball from a ruck of players beneath the Hogan Stand four minutes into stoppage time and somehow slung it over.
“Thanks be to God the guys won it out of the ruck, I got it and I just had to hit it. In fairness, the wind was pulling it in as well. It’s the stuff of dreams,” Burke said.
Former Kilkenny star Hogan declined to attend the post match press conference. In an interview with the GAA, he said the Burke score was a touch of brilliance.
Hogan said: “It was just a wonder
PAUL KEANE 0-18
0-17
score, I don’t even know if he looked at the posts. If he did fair play but he was under so much pressure.”
As for their poor second-half performance, despite being a man up, Hogan shrugged.
He said: “With the sending off, we possibly stopped using the ball as well as we had been all year. We probably started to go too direct and just needed to work the ball out to the channels, to the wings, and we started to go up the centre a bit too much which suited them, unfortunately.”
The fingerprints of the Burke family were all over this win as the six-in-a-row Galway champions finally shook off their nearly men tag.
Now they can hold their heads high and be remembered as one of the truly great club teams .
Galway star Conor Cooney’s move to fullforward helped stabilise the team after the dismissal of corner-forward James Regan early in the second-half.
That happened in the 32nd minute following what was deemed to be a head high challenge on midfielder Jack Nolan.
But is was the ‘ghost goal’ decision in the eighth minute was the real head scratcher.
TV replays appeared to show St Thomas’ full-back Fintan Burke carrying the sliotar over his own goalline after initially blocking an Owen Wall shot but neither the refereem nor any of his umpires felt it was a goal. So play continued and St Thomas’ created an attack themselves which ended in an Eanna Burke point. Instead of being 1-2 to 0-1 down, St Thomas’ were now level at 0-2 apiece.
If the incident had happened in the closing minutes, or even the second-half, instead of so early in the game, it would surely have been a much bigger deal.
Truth be told, O’loughlin Gaels didn’t make enough of their firsthalf dominance and only led 0-10 to 0-8. It should have been more and they paid the price as St Thomas’ reacted better to the red card and stormed to victory with a terrific second-half display.
Matchwinner Burke (below) said: “Look, it’s been very hard, so hard. You look at Ballyhale, people are saying they’re the best of all time, then Ballygunner come along and they say they’re going to be one of the best.
“You’re coming along at a time when there are such brilliant teams. Look, it’s not that it’s a monkey off our backs but we definitely thought there was an (All-ireland) in the team.”