Clifden 1-10

Carrigallen 0-10

Mike Rafferty at Pearse Stadium

IT is difficult to work out how good or ordinary Clifden are based on this performance at Pearse Stadium on Sunday as they eventually held off the challenge of the Leitrim visitors in this Connacht club junior football championship quarter-final.

The game did come to a satisfactory and merited conclusion for Ray Hogan’s charges, but after coasting to a seven point advantage early in the second half, they almost let it slip away as Carrigallen closed the gap to a point on 55 minutes.

Clifden held their nerve, however, and late points by leading scorer Ger Gibbons sealed the victory, but it should never have come to this.

Despite four changes to the starting line up that saw them defeat Athenry in the county final, Clifden were in command from the early exchanges and aided by a John O’Brien goal, they opened up a 1-4 to 0-1 advantage. They looked to be streets ahead of limited opposition as good quality early ball into the inside line was working to their advantage as O’Brien, Emmet Moran and Enda Conneely were making the runs and receiving a proper service.

Maybe it was the covering of Carriggallen’s Barry Dolan, Daniel McCann and Gary Reynolds that cut out the supply to the channels, but for some reason the deliveries stalled and, as a result, Clifden’s scoring ratio also dropped considerably, with the Galway champions managing just six points in the last 45 minutes of the game.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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