Corofin 0-11
Eastern Harps 0-6
When you take a look at their form over the past few months, there has been steady and incremental development over the last four or five games and that augurs well for the bigger challenges that lie ahead in the early months of 2009.
Jimmy Sice’s charges struggled to jump the stiff test posed by Caherlistrane in the county championship semi-final and that tie went to a replay. Corofin were fortunate to survive that examination and they did not look anything like All-Ireland material in the county final.
That said, they are improving gradually, and their increased collective confidence and greater cohesion all around the field was there for all to see last Sunday, especially in their impressive second-half display when they closed out the game in a professional and composed manner.
Joe Canney
The most obvious improvement has been up front, where the emergence of Joe Canney as a top-class club forward and the return to fitness of Jason Killeen has added a better balance to the attack.
Both men scored two good points from play against Eastern Harps, and Canney in particular has a tremendous work-rate which makes him exceedingly difficult to play against - an absolute gem from a team perspective as regards stopping the opposition coming out with the ball.
The other great thing about the diminutive firebrand is that he is a really selfless player. He works like a Trojan for the team and in possession he invariably takes the right option - such a commodity is not all that common at club level.
His overall improvement as a player has been great to observe, and if a few other forwards on the panel match that type of progress, then the Corofin management will have real options for the All-Ireland quarter-final on January 18 against Tir Chonaill Gaels.
It is up to guys like Tomas Costello, Kieran Comer, David Morris, Justin Burke, Padraig Hanly, and a few others who are on the fringes of the starting 15 to ramp things up at training over the next seven weeks and give live options and create hard decisions for their management coming into the last few fences.
Perhaps even one or two of their minor players who won the county league final last Saturday could come into the reckoning if they get a bit of extra feeding over the Christmas period.
Competition open
Adding some young guns onto the panel on a provisional basis could add a little excitement and enthusiasm to training in late December and early January and keep the competition for places where it should be.
If the Galway champions do manage to successfully negotiate their trip to London in January, they would face either Kilmacud Crokes or Rhode in the All-Ireland semi-final.
However such issues are in the distant future and for now this week it must be a tremendous feeling for players like Kieran Fitzgerald, Damien Burke, Alan Burke, Gary Delaney, Michael Comer, and David Hanly who have toiled for the past seven or eight years with no success to have finally collected a provincial medal.
And who knows, perhaps there is another big fish out there to be hauled on board too if the application and attitude is right?
