Inside Track with John McIntyre

SINCE their lone All-Ireland club final triumph in the Spring of 2013, St Thomas’ have only reached one other final – a 2-28 to 2-11 humiliation against Ballyhale Shamrocks in March of 2019 – despite dominating Galway hurling over the past decade.

It’s a record which St Thomas’ are desperate to improve on as Conor Cooney and company face into their problem fixture. In the five All-Ireland semi-finals they have contested, victory was achieved in only two of them . . . and it took a last gasp point from currently sidelined defender David Sherry to edge out Cushendall of Antrim at Parnell Park in February of 2019.

Before and since that close shave, St Thomas’ have come out on the wrong side of semi-finals against Ballyea of Clare – only beaten 1-19 to 2-14 despite trailing by 12 points heading into the final quarter; Borrisoleigh of Tipperary; and, most agonisingly of all, last January when two TJ Reid goals denied them a deserved revenge win over Ballyhale in Thurles.

It was a crushing defeat for St Thomas after producing arguably their best-ever display. There were broken bodies – physically and mentally – stretched out on the Semple Stadium turf as the Galway champions tried unsuccessfully to rationalise how they had a prized scalp snatched from their grasp in the dying moments.

With many of their players having a lot of mileage on the clock, there was understandable speculation that St Thomas’ would struggle to recover from such a gut-wrenching loss, but the split season was a help to them as it gave them longer than usual to lick their wounds, and time to regroup ahead of attempting to win a landmark five Galway titles on the trot.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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