By Neil McEnaney:
Full Time Score:
Fr Toms: 6-16
Galway: 5-19
While there was two fantastic All Ireland semi finals happening this weekend at home, the crowd in Canton were treated to an equally entertaining game of hurling on Sunday. Galway came into this game knowing they could wrap up this best of five championship with a win. Fr Toms showed great heart and determination to persevere and grind out a draw after being 11 points down at one stage late in the first half.
Galway raced to 3 point lead through the free taking abilities of Aaron Myers. Fiochra Fitz pulled one back for the Toms before a Galway man was pulled down running through on goal. Myers stepped up to take the penalty and buried it high to the keepers right.
Toms responded immediately with Chris Nolan squaring the ball to Zac Firman who ended up kicking it into the net to beat Darach Fahy in goals. Toms kept the pressure up with Nolan winning a puck out, solo running with the ball before finishing with a nice point off his left side.
Not to be outdone, Galway put serious pressure on the Toms puckouts, forcing turnovers and leading to scores. One turnover led to Ronan Glennon being put through from midfield to go on a solo run and finishing with power from the 21 into the Toms net. This put Galway up by 5 points.
Galway finished the half strongly and started winning a lot of the 50-50 breaking balls. A long puck out was gathered well by Niall Collins who got through one on one with the keeper. It was coolness personified for Collins as he lobbed it over the onrushing Kevin Flynn in goals for a great goal.
Myers was accurate from another free before turning provider for Glennon’s second goal of the game. He picked him out with a great cross field pass and Glennon made no mistake when given the opportunity.
Fr Toms showed some fight just before half time with an absolute rocket of a goal from the corner of the D from Fitz. Toms went into the break 8 points down and with all the work to do in the second half.
Half Time Score:
Fr Toms: 2-9
Galway: 4-11
Whatever was said at half time in the Toms dressing room definitely got them going in the second half. Flynn opened the scoring with a free from midfield. From the resulting puck out, Luke Kavanagh made a brilliant solo run down the left wing before finding Ciarmach Smyth with a handpass who buried the goal.
Galway responded immediately with Myers popping over a free before he went on a solo run of his own and finished with a great goal. Then on the next play, Fr Toms got a goal! Chris Nolan picked up a long puck out and hand passed it through to Fitz who buried it into the bottom corner.
Galway came up the field and hit a wide before Flynn found Aidan O’Malley with the puck out. O’Malley hit a great cross field pass into Chris Nolan. Nolan had it all to do, he squared up his marker, took him on and finished with a great goal past Darach Fahy in the Galway nets.
After the exchange of all the goals, the score was Galway 5-12, Fr Toms 5-10.
Galway hit three points without reply including a monster point from the goalkeeper from the left wing of his own 45. But Fr Toms had a never say die attitude today and a brilliant catch by Nolan was finished into the back of the net again. Back to a 2 point game.
Both teams went point for point in the last quarter of the game with the accurate free taking of Flynn keeping Toms in touch. Nolan was denied another goal by a great Fahy save in the Galway nets. The resulting 65 went short to Aiden O’Malley who scored a nice point to narrow the gap to 2 points once more.
Nolan found a bit of space to score another point off his left side. A long ball into the full forward line found Nolan once more who went straight for goal but was denied by a great Fahy save once more. Nolan had the advantage and Flynn tipped over the point to level the sides. The referee blew the full time whistle and what a great game of hurling we witnessed.
Man of the Match: Darragh Flynn
Referee: Niall Malone
Team and Scorers:
Fr Toms: Kevin Flynn, Ciarmach Smyth (1-0), Evan Connolly, Brian Troy, Eoin Lawless, Luke Kavanagh, Cian Mulqueen, John O’Riordan, Aidan O’Malley (0-1), Fiochra Fitz (2-1), Darragh Flynn (0-10), Zac Firman (1-0), Chris Nolan (2-3)
Galway: Darach Fahy (0-1), Ian Fox (0-1), Donal Mannion, Tiernan Kileen (0-1), Ciaran Fahy, Sean O’Shaughnessy, Ronan Glennon (2-1), Alex Connaire (0-3), Sean Walsh (0-1), Aaron Myers (2-6), Brian Cahill, Niall Collins (1-2), Billy Power (0-2)
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