Cool St Thomas' hold firm to win six-in-a-row in Galway

St Thomas' 2-12 Turloughmore 1-13

St Thomas' captured their sixth Galway SHC title in a row when they saw off the challenge of Turloughmore in the final at Pearse Stadium by 2-12 to 1-13.

It completes a remarkable run by the south Galway side who have now won all eight finals they have appeared in since reaching their first decider in 2012.

And it also completes an astonishing run for captain Conor Cooney who has skippered them to each of their six in a row titles.

Turloughmore were the only Galway side to previously string six county titles together but they came up short against St Thomas’ for the second time in four seasons.

Turloughmore, having opted to play with the wind, trailed by 1-06 to 0-08 at the interval after the champions did most of the running.

Turloughmore’s hopes of a bright start in front of 7,148 were dashed as the champions raced into a 0-04 to 0-00 lead after ten minutes with Darragh Burke notching two of them after Shane Cooney got them off the mark inside 22 seconds and his older brother Conor landed a free from distance.

Conor Walsh finally got Turloughmore off the mark with a free from the right after 12 minutes but their attack was struggling to make inroads against a solid defence from St Thomas’.

St Thomas’ struck a huge blow a minute later when Eanna Burke took down a delivery from Damien Finnerty and dispatched it to the net to lead by 1-04 to 0-01.

Turloughmore responded well with two points from Sean O’Hanlon and another free from Walsh to cut the gap to a goal after 19 minutes but two superb efforts from Victor Manso put St Thomas’ ahead by double scores.

Conor Cooney, who played a deep role against the wind, uncharacteristically missed a second free and Turloughmore finished