Christy O'Connor: Devastating Pearses leave Corofin with no arguments
O’sullivan Celebrates Pearses Of ©inpho/lorraine Pic: Padraig Canning Sean
Could it happen? If it was to, for just the second time in 22 years, Saturday evening in Newbridge was identified as the likely setting, when a seasoned Naas outfit who’d reached two of the three previous Leinster finals went up against a Cuala team making their first football appearance in the province.
It's never that simple, especially with a Dublin team involved in Leinster. Apart from clubs from the capital having won 14 of the last 20 provincial championships, Dublin clubs had only lost six of their previous 59 games in the province in the last two decades.
Dublin clubs rarely lose so early in the competition either. The only time a Dublin club was beaten in their first game in Leinster in the last 20 years was in 2017, when Rathnew shocked a St Vincent’s side aiming for a fourth Leinster title in five seasons. Prior to that match, the last time a Dublin club had failed to make it as far as a Leinster semi-final was back in 2002, when Rathnew took out UCD by one point in the quarter-final.
After Rathnew beat Vincent’s in 2017 though, Dublin sides only lost one game out of their next 15 in the province, which was Kilmacud Crokes’ shock 2018 final defeat to Mullinalaghta. And that loss was the spark that reignited Crokes into becoming a different animal and the first side in the province to win three in a row, between 2021-23.
Despite Cuala having finally halted the Crokes' machine in last month’s county final, they didn’t carry that same authority or status into Saturday’s match that Crokes would have. Naas played all the football in the first ten minutes, hammering Crokes on turnovers around their own D and on the scoreboard. Naas had seven more shots than Cuala in the first half (17-10) but Cuala were far more efficient, which was a trend they maintained throughout the match; Cuala’s overall conversion rate was 68% compared to Naas’ 53%.
It was an excellent match but Naas were still always fighting fires all over the field after the first ten minutes. Even in that period, Mark Maguire and Robert Fitzgerald were struggling on Con and Niall O’Callaghan in the full-back line. The brothers continued to cause chaos; Con only scored one point, set up 1-1, was fouled for a converted free and had his fingerprints on two more scores, but his brother was even better again, with Niall scoring 1-5 from eight shots, and engineering the first goal for Luke Keating.
Cuala were outstanding. The heat of their press was relentless while they committed so many bodies forward on the attack that they were always occupying Naas’ big names in their defence and around the middle third. Their bench was impressive too, especially Conor Groarke who nailed three points from three shots. Cuala’s aggression, pace, power and superior conditioning was on a different level. So was their productivity on their own kickout, with Cuala mining 2-8 from that source.
A fourth successive defeat to a Dublin club is hard to take for Naas, especially when they thought the result might be different this time around with Crokes gone. With Dublin clubs though, the numbers rarely change in Leinster.
Late on in the first half of yesterday’s Galway county final, Cappatagle’s Niall Collins had a half goal chance from an acute angle which was saved by Loughrea goalkeeper Gearóid Loughnane. With the sides deadlocked 0-8 each at the time, the game already had that sense of a goal carrying more weight than ever before, especially in such a highly pressurised game with Loughrea so desperate to end their losing streak in finals, and Cappy so hungry to win a first title.
Although Loughrea sniped three huge unanswered points just before the break, that pivotal moment in the match arrived five minutes into the second half when Ja Mannion released Oran Finn, who was pulled down for a penalty. “Is this the moment?” asked Seán Walsh in his Galway GAA TV match-commentary.
Liam Collins drove his shot low and hard to Loughnane’s left but the Loughrea ‘keeper made a brilliant save. To compound the miss for Cappy, Ian Hanrahan scored a point for Loughrea off that turnover.
There were just two more goal chances in the match. With five minutes remaining, Anthony Burns raised a precious green flag for Loughrea. Niall Collins had another half chance to level the match in additional time but his shot flew over the crossbar.
“Goals are a huge currency in county finals,” said Walsh afterwards.
He was right, especially in the context of how important goals have been in so many low scoring county finals in the last five years; Loughrea’s final tally of 1-15 (18 points) would have won four of the previous five finals.
On the stoke of half-time in Tuam yesterday, just after Corofin’s Dylan Canney had won a mark, Canney’s lofted effort was caught in the square by Conor Ryan, and Padraig Pearses instantly were thinking of cashing in on the turnover. Two kickpasses and a handful of seconds later the outstanding Paul Carey had the ball over the bar for Pearses.
That passage of play neatly encapsulated the first half, and how devastating Pearses had been on turnovers and shooting efficiency, especially in comparison to Corofin. Ahead by eight points at the break, the Roscommon champions had an 82 per cent conversion rate in the first half, having mined 1-5 of their 1-8 off turnovers. Corofin, on the otherhand, had just a 30 per cent conversion rate in that period.
Corofin, as you’d expect, came out with all guns blazing in the second half but it took them until the fourth quarter to really get moving. They had nine shots to just three for Pearses in that period but they still had to gamble late on when they had the deficit down to three, which Pearses clinically punished with a goal from Jack Nevin into an empty net after Corofin goalkeeper Bernie Power had pushed up on a Pearses kickout.
A team of Corofin’s pedigree and attacking flair will be sickened after failing to score from play for over half an hour. They’ll be even more disappointed again with a tally of just 0-10, which is the lowest score Corofin have hit when losing a match in Connacht since the 2002 quarter-final. That day they also hit just 0-10 when unluckily losing to Eastern Harps by one point.
Yet there was no arguments yesterday.
When Castlehaven went into yesterday’s Munster quarter-final as favourites, it was easy to believe what Dr Crokes were thinking, especially with their track record in the competition against Cork teams, and particularly with their win rate at home in Lewis Road.
Outside of two Munster final defeats to Nemo Rangers in 2010 and 2017, Crokes had never lost to another Cork team in the province, while their record in their home ground has been astonishing; in their eight previous Munster championship matches at Lewis Road, Crokes had won by an aggregate of 91 points, an average of over 11 points per game.
Yesterday, Crokes won by seven points? Surprised? No.