February 16, 2011
By Staff Reporter
By Connie Kelly
Tipperary 2-16, Galway 1-8
Senior hurling topped the bill at the Irish Center in Canton on Sunday. In a very hard hitting game the Munster men held too much power and panache for the Westerners. The game was but three minutes old when man of the match Michael Doherty took a bad hit to the head which delayed play for some time. After the resumption, the game returned to it’s red-hot pace.
Galway were first on the scoreboard when Martin Cullihane latched onto the sliotar to rifle a shot to the back of the Tipp net. Five minutes later, Chris Dunne pulled one back from a free for the Premier county. Tipp dominated for a period then and when Mike Doherty struck a lovely pass to Packie Ryan he slotted over with ease. Galway would then have three rapid points from Gareth Considine, Martin Cullihane and Mattie Ford.
With 18 minutes played Packie Ryan beat his marker and sent a lovely pass to Tipp’s Chris Dunne for their first goal of the game. A minute later, Darragh Kealey had the game tied up with a point from a free. Tipp looked that bit sharper at this stage. Chris Dunne was fouled in the small square before the short whistle and Ger O’Grady sent a piledriver to the net. Both teams traded two points before the break arrived to leave the score 2-6 for Tipp, 1-5 for Galway at the change over.
The second half started off at a very fast pace again with both teams trading points inside two minutes. The turning point for Galway came after 9th minute when they had a penalty saved and cleared by goalie Darren Coady. Brendan Morrissey of Galway tried time and again to rally his troops but Tipp had too much fire power up front with Dunne, Ryan, Paul Shelley and Ger O’Grady in scintillating form.
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Connemara 1-13, Cork 2-5
Cork will have no one to blame for this loss but themselves. They had every chance in the last five minutes, but some terrible shooting and bad passing left last year’s Northeast champions wondering what went wrong. Connemara Gaels built up an impressive half time lead of 1-8 to 1-2 with some excellent scores by Dessie Molohan, Alan Lynch, Chris Donnelan and Alan O’Donovan.
Robbie O’Mahoney, one of the best attackers in Boston, had an off day for the Munstermen, and with the Gaels dominating around the middle, they always had the advantage up front. Frank Delaney and Kieran O’Shea tried hard for Cork, but Matt Beatty and Mark Lukeman of the Gaels held the sway. The back line for the Gaels played well. Michael Donnellan, Pat O’Malley and Kieran Cox were very strong.