Mountbellew-Moylough ended their 35 year wait and are the new champions of the Galway Senior Football Championship.
Val Daly’s side produced an immaculate hour of football to dismantle champions Corofin, and the result leaves no doubt as to who the top dogs are in Galway at the moment.
Mountbellew-Moylough have been knocking on the door for so long now, and the black and amber could not have given a more emphatic performance to bring the Frank Fox Trophy to Mountbellew-Moylough for the first time since 1986.
Corofin, on the day, were extremely flat, and can have no complaints about the outcome. It was an underwhelming performance from Kevin O’Brien’s side who did not get motoring throughout the contest. Mountbellew-Moylough’s middle third dominated the game and stifled the Corofin supply to their full forward line.
Front foot
The game began with Mountbellew-Moylough on the front foot and they never looked back.
Eoin Finnerty, in typical fashion, hooked a wonderful point from the left wing to open the scoring. A Barry McHugh free and a tap over point from John Daly had last year’s beaten finalists firmly in the ascendancy.
Corofin could barely string a move together, such was the pressure being applied by their opponents. They finally opened their account when Ronan Steede worked an interchange with Martin Farragher as the former clipped a point from a tight angle. But it was still one way traffic thereafter, as Finnerty twice, McHugh and Michael Daly all raised white flags.
Corofin started to get some sort of grip on the game as Dylan Wall repeatedly attempted to grab the game by the scruff of the neck with some penetrating runs from deep. A Dylan Canney score from play and a Darragh Silke free cut the deficit to four points, but a Barry McHugh free soon followed as the sides went into the dressing rooms with the score at 0-08 to 0-03.
Those expecting a Corofin backlash soon had this notion quashed by a dogged Mountbellew-Moylough as they effectively finished the game as a contest in the third quarter.
Another placed ball from McHugh added to the tally with a magnificent team goal buried to the net by their captain Eoin Finnerty.
Corofin rolled out the bench in an attempt to stage a fightback. Michael Farragher and Matthew Cooley introduced some quality that was missing from their forward line throughout the game, but in truth their backlash was meek.
Missing players such as Gary Sice and Ian Burke from the forward line seems to have blunted Corofin’s sword as Mountbellew-Moylough closed out the game with ease to win by 1-12 to 0-09.
After so many near misses it is a title the club of Mountbellew-Moylough deserves and it will not be begrudged by many in the county. With Eoin Finnerty, Michael Daly, Barry McHugh and John Daly still to hit their prime years, this group of players could be set to dominate the club scene in Galway for the next few seasons.
Touching distance
Mountbellew/Moylough are now within touching distance of the favourites for All-Ireland glory after they ended a long wait for a senior football championship title in Galway.
The beaten finalists in three of the previous four years had lost three county deciders against Corofin between 2015 and 18, but a dominant performance against the reigning All-Ireland champions on Sunday at Pearse Stadium secured a six-point win and a first Galway championship since 1986.
Now the betting suggests they have a chance of going all the way after they plummeted into 15/2 from 25/1 with BoyleSports to be crowned All-Ireland club champions for the first time.
That makes the Galway side third favourites to keep the title in the county behind 7/2 shots Glen and Dublin side Kilamcud Crokes, who are odds-on favourites at 4/9 to see off St Judes in Sunday’s county decider in the capital.
Lawrence Lyons, spokesperson for BoyleSports says: “Dethroning Corofin was always going to be a feather in the cap of Mountbellew/Moylough, but the style of the victory has really caught the eye. The reigning champions couldn’t really get into the game and at 15/2 from 25/1, the winners are now very well fancied for a strong run.”
