Former All-Ireland club champions St Thomas proved too strong for Loughrea on Sunday in their county senior semi-final at Kenny Park.
With county star Conor Cooney in good scoring form, notching 0-8, John Burke’s charges always looked good value for their 1-15 to 1-10 win.
Loughrea started well and grabbed an early goal through captain Neil Keary, but they were far too dependent on the same player for the full hour and he scored all but two points of their entire total.
Such a lack of a scoring threat from their other forwards was always going to be costly and it took 40 minutes for Loughrea to get a different name on the scores sheet when wing-forward Gearoid Loughnane raised a white flag.
The winners were 1-7 to 1-4 ahead at half time and they never really looked like losing that lead in the second half, with scores from Darragh Burke, Gerald Kelly and a few more from Conor Cooney sealing the deal.
Their first half goal was a well-taken effort from Brendan Farrell, who lined out with number 20 on his back, and they had other good displays from team captain Patrick Skehill between the sticks and defenders Fintan Burke and Shane Cooney.
It was unusual to see the listed centre-back Daragh Burke lining out at centre forward, and Sean Skehill wearing number three also up front lining out at full-forward.
Regardless of the numbers, it was a workmanlike performance, but they will probably need to find a bit more sparkle and intensity to take out Gort in the final in Pearse Stadium on Sunday week.
Helebert points Gort to win
Gort followed up their quarter-final win over Sarsfields with a 1-17 to 0-18 semi-final victory over Craughwell last weekend in Athenry.
Their top scorer was free taker Aiden Helebert, who hit 0-8 (3fs ) in the first half and ended the tie with 0-11 beside his name. Niall Healy was the chief scorer for the Craughwell men and he notched 0-12 in total.
Gort are favourites to win the Tom Callanan cup this year and Jason Grealish and centre-forward Albert Mullins hit important scores to keep them neck and neck with Craughwell.
A late goal by Gerard O’Donoghue was the key score of the game and it was enough to propel his team into the county final on Sunday week.
The county final is fixed for 3.30pm on Sunday week (October 16 ) in Pearse Stadium.
