Last weekend in Athenry, St Thomas’ hurling club had one of the best days in its short history when overcoming Loughrea by 0-14 to 0-11 to collect the Western Postform u-21A county hurling title.
St Thomas was formed in 1968 with the amalgamation of Kilchreest and Peterswell and last Sunday was a real step forward for this progressive club.
They had won u-21B titles in 1980 and 1995, but collecting the A title is a real signal of intent. This group of players also annexed the county minor A title in 2008.
After losing the past two u-21 finals, this was a sweet win for Cyril Kelly's team.
They led by 0-7 to 0-3 at one stage in the first half with good scores from Anthony Kelly and Conor Cooney. However Loughrea rallied and had drawn level by half time.
St Thomas tore into things after the break and rifled over 0-6 without reply to lead by 0-13 to 0-7, which left Loughrea with too much to do, despite the best efforts of Neil Keary and county minor Sean Sweeney.
St Thomas, with Bernard Burke, David Burke, Conor Cooney, James Regan and Donal Cooney all on the new Galway senior panel for 2012, will be hopeful of pushing on from this success over the coming few seasons at senior level.
Scorers for St Thomas: C Cooney 0-5 (0-4 frees ), J Regan, B Burke, D Burke, A Kelly 0-2 each, C Kelly 0-1.
Scorers for Loughrea: N Keary 0-5 (all frees ), S McCormack 0-2, P Hooban, S Sweeney, J Ryan, C Quinn 0-1 each.
