John Kiely’s side dominated over the 70 minutes with 1-23 coming from open play
LIMERICK 1-27 GALWAY 0-18
It was back to business as usual for Limerick as they moved into Division 1A league final contention with a resounding 1-27 to 0-18 win over Galway in the TUS Gaelic Grounds on Saturday evening.
The Treaty held a seven-point advantage at the half-time interval. Kilmallock’s Shane O’Brien was impressive at full forward with 1-3, while Kyle Hayes returned to centre back, commanding his area, and Colin Coughlan continued to show his eagerness to claim a start on the first championship fifteen.
And in the second half, they pushed further on and cemented their place firmly in the hunt for a spot in the Division 1A final, with key players like Cathal O’Neill and Aidan O’Connor turning on the style and finishing with a combined 0-8.
For Micheal Donoghue and Galway, it’s been a good run in the league thus far and aside from their opening day hammering at home to Tipperary, the Tribesmen have picked up some much needed wins both at home and most notably on their travels over Leinster rivals Kilkenny and Wexford and at home to All Ireland Champions Clare. Despite this, on this encounter, they will admit that they were second best in most departments.
Limerick will now turn their focus to the trip away to Nowlan Park next Saturday and they’ll certainly fancy their chances against the Leinster powerhouse.
A feisty opening to proceedings saw Adam English’s attempt on goal beaten away by Darach Fahy, before he intercepted an attempted clearance from Cianan Fahy to slot over the games opening point, with Kilmallock’s Shane O’Brien making it a two point advantage to give Limerick an ideal start.
Aidan O’Connor got off the score sheet before Conor Cooney added to his first placed ball of the day to bring Galway back to within a point. Soon after that he found himself in the referee’s notebook for a late hit from the hip to the head of Mike Casey, with the Na Piarsaigh man unable to continue after that.
The next few minutes saw John Kiely’s side take control of the middle third and began exposing gaps in the Galway defence, with Cathal O’Neill firing over a fine effort from out the sideline, adding to a free from Aaron Gillane and a superb over the shoulder effort from O’Brien to leave the Treaty men in a commanding position early on.
Galway would have been disappointed with their early attempts at goal, many of those chances coming from long range but they were failing to execute them to the best of their undoubted capabilities. Conor Cooney notched over his sides first score in over 11 minutes with a 65, but that was soon cancelled out by Shane O’Brien’s third score of the night, and he was certainly on song as he claimed the games opening goal.
Adam English’s ball intended for Gillane found its way to O’Brien and he glided past Fintan Burke before batted the ball into the bottom corner to leave Limerick six in front after the opening 20 minutes.
Galway were really struggling in the middle and had no answer to the tenacity and fast paced off the shoulder passing from their opponents, as evidenced by Cian Lynch as we’ve come to expect dancing his way around the 65 before loading it off to Kyle Hayes and he made no mistake from 70 yards out.
Galway were masters of their own downfall with Padraic Mannion uncharacteristically giving away possession to the in form O’Brien, fortunately for them he didn’t take his chance on this occasion, but they didn’t get away with it the second time as Aidan O’Connor got his second to push his side’s lead out to seven.
Micheal Donoghue would have certainly been concerned with his team’s shooting, as they had only registered 0-3 from play after the opening 30 minutes, and had plenty of chances to bring that tally up. Albeit Limerick also contributed to nine wides by half time, but still having a 54% shooting accuracy, compared to Galway’s 42%.
UL Fitzgibbon Cup winning captain Colin Coughlan was enjoying the space afforded to him down the right hand side and his efforts were finally rewarded with a long range strike, added by Barry Nash’s hit which just trickled over the fingertips of Darach Fahy in nets and Galway all of a sudden had serious work to do in order to get themselves back into this one.
A big opening 10 minutes was what was required of them, and they did come close to reducing the gap significantly, as captain Conor Whelan fed Brian Concannon who had his attempt at goal saved brilliantly by Shane Dowling but it did trickle over the bar.
However, their chances of getting anything from this game were slowly fading as talisman Conor Cooney received a second yellow for another late hit, this time on Barry Murphy and Galway would have to play the final 23 minutes with 14 men.
Cathal O’Neill and Aidan O’Connor further added to Donoghue’s woes, as they now were comfortably sitting with a nine point advantage and having an extra man on the field.
Peter Casey soon made his presence felt as he added to Aaron Gillane’s superb strike over the shoulder alongside Tom Morrissey sending over his first score of the season and Limerick were all but home and hosed with 20 minutes left on the clock.
Cathal Mannion did tag on a few scores, but Galway just couldn’t break down the sheer force and strength of the Limerick defence, on a night to forget for the Connacht side.
TG4 Man of the Match: Aidan O’Connor (Limerick)
Scorers:
LIMERICK: Aaron Gillane (0-4 f) 0-6, Shane O’Brien 1-3, Cathal O’Neill and Aidan O’Connor 0-4 each, Tom Morrissey and Barry Nash 0-2 each, Adam English, Colin Coughlan, Peter Casey, Kyle Hayes, Cian Lynch and David Reidy 0-1 each
GALWAY: Cathal Mannion (0-6 f) 0-7, Conor Cooney (0-3 f, 0-1 65) 0-6, Tiernan Killeen, Gavin Lee, Brian Concannon, Tom Monaghan, Sean Linnane 0-1 each
Wides:
LIMERICK: 13
GALWAY: 14
Teams:
LIMERICK: Shane Dowling (Na Piarsaigh); Sean Finn (Bruff), Mike Casey (Na Piarsaigh), Barry Murphy (Doon), Colin Coughlan (Ballybrown), Kyle Hayes (Kildimo/Pallaskenry), Barry Nash (South Liberties); Adam English (Doon), William O’Donoghue (Na Piarsaigh); Cathal O’Neill (Crecora Manister), Cian Lynch (C) (Patrickswell), Tom Morrissey (Ahane); Aaron Gillane (Patrickswell), Shane O’Brien (Kilmallock), Aidan O’Connor (Ballybrown).
Subs: Vince Harrington (Na Piarsaigh) for Casey (8), Peter Casey (Na Piarsaigh) for Lynch (47), Ethan Hurley (Newcastle West) for Hayes (50), David Reidy (Dromin-Athlacca) for O’Donoghue (52), Gearoid Hegarty (St Patricks) for O’Connor (56), Eddie Stokes (Doon) for English (65)
GALWAY: Darach Fahy (Ardrahan); Shane Morgan (Loughrea), Fintan Burke (St Thomas), Darren Morrissey (Sarsfields); Padraic Mannion (Ahascragh Fohenagh), Gavin Lee (Clarinbridge), Michael Garvey (Cappataggle); Cianan Fahy (Ardrahan), David Burke (St Thomas); Tom Monaghan (Craughwell), Conor Cooney (St Thomas), Tiernan Killeen (Loughrea); Conor Whelan (C) (Kinvara), Kevin Cooney (Sarsfield), Anthony Burns (Loughrea).
Subs: Brian Concannon (Killimordaly) for Burns (HT), Cathal Mannion (Ahascragh Fohenagh) for Burke (43), John Cooney (Sarsfields) for Cooney (47), Sean Linnane (Turloughmore) for Whelan (47), TJ Brennan (Clarinbridge) for Morgan (65)
Referee: James Owens (Wexford).