St. Thomas’ 2-21

Craughwell 1-13

By Eanna O’Reilly at Kenny Park

DEFENDING champions St. Thomas’ kept their seven in a row ambitions firmly on track  as they overcame Craughwell in Saturday’s refixed preliminary quarter final in Athenry. Kenneth Burke’s charges pulled away from their opponents emphatically in the second half of this tie to set up a quarter final clash with Turloughmore this weekend.

Craughwell provided a good challenge in the first half of this game, but gradually faded after half time, as the champions went into top gear to pull away. In what was a bad tempered contest at times, both sides finished the game with fourteen men. The second half saw the dismissals of Craughwell’s Thomas Hynes and St. Thomas’ John Headd for striking incidents.

The champions made a strong start to the opening half and soon built a three point lead. Shane Cooney opened the scoring within seconds of the throw in, before his brother Conor pointed two frees to make it 0-3 to 0-0 after four minutes of play.

Oisín Quirke soon got Craughwell off the mark with a pointed free, before Tom Monaghan pointed, after a good move involving Ger O’Halloran and Patrick Monaghan. At the other end, a shot on goal from Cooney was well saved by Stephen O’Halloran, with Cooney pointing the resulting ’65.

Two minutes later, the county forward added his third free to make it 0-5 to 0-2, before Quirke responded at the other end with two frees of his own to narrow the margin to a point. Cooney’s dead ball accuracy continued to give St Thomas’ the edge, and he added two more either side of a Darragh McCartin point to leave his side ahead by 0-7 to 0-5 with 20 minutes played.

Craughwell then raised their game to tally three points on the spin in an impressive spell for Ian Daniels’ side. Quirke tallied his first score from play, after some good work from Ryan Howley and Patrick Monaghan in the lead up. He then added a free and a ’65 during the next five minutes to put Craughwell into the lead for the first time.

Pictured: St Thomas’ Darragh Burke is about to get his shot away as Jamie Ryan of Craughwell gives chase during Saturday’s preliminary senior hurling quarter-final at Kenny Park. Photos: Joe O’Shaughnessy.