Dunmore MacHales 1-11       

Ballyhaunis 1-8          

Kevin Egan at MacHale Park

LIKE so many other famous lines reputed to have been uttered by Micheál Ó Muircheartaigh down the years, the phrase “in the first half they played with the wind, in the second half they played with the ball” is hard to source. It could be taken to apply to any number of games however, and last Saturday’s Connacht Intermediate championship semi-final in Castlebar can now be added to the list.

“We had the breeze and we thought that if we went a bit longer, it might be better. But we’re a good running team, and once we changed it up a bit, it suited us” was the summary of Dunmore MacHales manager Gary Delaney after the game, and while that can be safely assessed as an understatement, it’s as good a starting point as any from which to base this match report.

Naturally, there was a lot more to it than simply running the ball a lot better than they kicked it. For one thing, Dunmore got what luck was going in this game, most notably in regard to their first half goal, where Keith Higgins got a solid block on Thomas Gleeson’s shot but still couldn’t prevent the ball from rolling into the corner.

They also benefited from the timing of the rain that spilled onto the MacHale Park surface from the start of the second half; as so often happens, the onset of rainfall took the edge off the wind, and while Ballyhaunis were slightly favoured by the elements after half-time, Dunmore were allowed to operate with a much larger ‘scoring zone’ than their Mayo counterparts.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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