Moycullen need extra time to beat Strokestown

Moycullen 2-08 Strokestown 0-07 (after extra time)

Moycullen made short work of one first-time club championship winning team in the first round of this year's AIB Connacht club campaign when they overwhelmed Westport, and they were expected to do the same this afternoon to a Strokestown side that last month, recorded their first Fahey Cup win in Roscommon for 20 years.

Yet this turned out to be a completely different affair this afternoon in Tuam, as the east Roscommon side pushed the hotly fancied Galway men to the pin of their collar, and when they reflect on this contest in the coming days and weeks, they will wonder how things might have gone if a couple of debated calls from referee John Gilmartin had gone a different way.

Certainly, any notion that Strokestown spent the last month doing little other than celebrating their famous victory was blown out of the water in the early stages of the tie, when they burst out of the blocks with a string of early scores.

That all four of their points came from dead balls was slightly deceptive, as they moved the ball very well and forced those chances with quick movement of ball and man. Diarmuid McGann knocked over two while 18-year-old Shane McGinley made light of the heavy ground and cold air to pop over his two scores from the 45-metre line. Moreover, McGinley was incredibly lively as the lone full-time occupant of the full forward line while at midfield and half-back, Strokestown’s tackling and physicality really discommoded Don Connellan’s Galway title holders.

However, the game changed completely when Gilmartin decreed that David Butler’s late arrival to a loose ball breaking in the midfield area met the criteria of a trip worthy of a black card. By the time Butler returned