On the week where Maigh Cuilinn native James Connaire was called up to the Irish Senior Men’s squad, his team were unable to overcome a polished Griffith College Éanna outfit who left Galway with a well deserved 65 to 90 road win.
After a back and forth initial two and a half quarters, the visitors from Dublin exploded late in the third quarter. They would push on after that to truly blow out a Maigh Cuilinn side that now faces three final games this season to save themselves from relegation.
With Éanna sitting second in the northern conference and positioning themselves as genuine title contenders, Sunday’s matchup with a Maigh Cuilinn team playing without the services of Patrick Lyons was always one that was likely to tilt towards the Dubliners.
Some fine shooting from Maigh Cuilinn in the early exchanges, and from Aitor Perez in particular, did provide hope for the home faithful. The one-point gap between the teams at the end of the first quarter was a fair reflection of proceedings.
The second quarter played out in a similar fashion with neither team able to pull away. For Maigh Cuilinn, Kyle Cunningham had come off the bench and played some superb basketball to give his side a real boost.
Signs of trouble for the Galway club were there to be seen however. While Maigh Cuilinn were knocking down outside shots, Éanna were getting to the basket more consistently, creating mismatches that resulted in good post ups. They were also winning the offensive rebounding battle. These all contributed to Maigh Cuilinn being in significant foul trouble from late in the first half onwards. Éanna would shoot 26 free throws to Maigh Cuilinn’s 11 in the game.
What seemed like the inevitable run from Éanna came just before the half-time break. When Sean Jenkins knocked in a shot on the buzzer, the teams went to the locker rooms for their respective half time talks with ten points between them, 36 - 46.
Maigh Cuilinn proceeded to hit a minor purple patch to start the second half. They netted seven unanswered points and got the margin back to three. Éanna would go on to simply dominate the remainder of the game however, scoring at will and limiting Maigh Cuilinn to long range jump shots.
The visitors were full value for their comprehensive win and Maigh Cuilinn can have little complaints about the result. A frustrated Maigh Cuilinn bench vented some anger at the referees late in the game, resulting in a series of ‘bench technical fouls’ assigned to head coach John Cunningham who was ejected from the arena with a minute to play. It did at least inspire probably the loudest round of applause all evening as Cunningham was given a warm reception by the Maigh Cuilinn supporters as he passed by the home bleachers on his way out.
Comfortingly for Maigh Cuilinn, this was not a game they would have circled on the calendar as a likely win. They still have an excellent chance at avoiding relegation and enter the final three game stretch of the season with every opportunity of picking up the two wins that they would probably need for safety. They have this weekend off before traveling to Kerry on the 2nd of March for easily the biggest game of their season when they play fellow relegation battlers Killorglin.
Maigh Cuilinn Scorers: Aitor Perez 18, Ivan Basic 11, Grant Olsson 10, Josiah Laracey 10, Antonio Molina 5, Kyle Cunningham 5, Kevin Nugent 3, James Connaire 3, CIan Carroll, Joseph Tummon
