Second-half revival gives Tourlestrane shot at glory
Impressive recovery against St Mary’s Kiltoghert at Carrick-on-Shannon venue earns Sligo champions their first Connacht Club SFC showdown since 1982
Connacht GAA Club SFC Semi-Final Tourlestrane
St Mary’s Kiltoghert
IT WAS half-time at Avant Money Páirc Seán Mac Diarmada last Saturday afternoon and Tourlestrane sadly seemed to have run out of credit. Four points down to Leitrim champions St Mary’s Kiltoghert, 0-6 to 0-2, it looked as if – yet again – the south Sligo giants were in the process of failing to transfer their near flawless county dominance onto the provincial stage. And it wasn’t as if they were being stymied by the likes of Castlebar
Mitchels, Padraig
EMOTIONAL: Tourlestrane teammates Oisin Kennedy and John Francis Carr at the final whistle last Saturday. 0-8 0-6
Pearses or Knockmore, as has happened in recent years.
Their precarious situation was at the hands of useful yet ordinary opponents, even if midfielder Paul Keaney had bagged a hat-trick of first-half points for the home side, including a wonder score after 11 minutes. Tourlestrane supporters, numbed by the scoreline and the biting wind (which had favoured St Mary’s Kiltoghert in the opening period), were also stunned by their team’s firsthalf inadequacies.
They had possession but were ponderous with it – the ball wasn’t being played quickly enough into their inside forwards and at times there weren’t enough shrewd runs being made by those attackers.
Tourlestrane had also retreated into their shell somewhat, allowing St Mary’s to established a five-point lead, 0-6 to 0-1.
Liam Gaughan’s sharp point after 50 seconds, with excellent midfielder John Francis Carr providing the assist, might as well have been scored the day before. In the midst of this listlessness, that also leaked into Tourlestrane’s shooting as they kicked three first-half wides, came the first hint of defiance when the aforementioned John Francis Carr burst through for a point, following John Kelly’s clever graft, before the half-time whistle sounded. Carr, indeed, could have tried for a goal but he took the point and the gap was four points, 0-6 to 0-2. It was difficult to be optimistic for Tourlestrane, however, and that mood was reflected in the press box during the interval as the Leitrim folk milling about gorged on the euphoria generated by St Mary’s Kiltoghert’s very good first-half display.
“They’re no good,” was one comment – with the ‘they’ being Tourlestrane. If this was a pub it would be a case of the pints talking; here it was the points talking, six of them to be precise, as St Mary’s Kiltoghert certainly deserved to be in front. But this is Tourlestrane we’re talking about, winners of seven successive Sligo Senior Football Championships and an unprecedented 42 games without defeat in that super sequence. Tourlestrane’s players, individually and collectively, got to work and a marvellous second-half recovery brought six unanswered points, a two-point win, 0-8