St Brigid's make short work of Coolera-Strandhill

St Brigid's 0-13 Coolera-Strandhill 1-03

There was no mistaking the gulf in class between St Brigid’s and Coolera-Strandhill in this afternoon’s Connacht SFC quarter-final as the Roscommon champions made short work of their Sligo counterparts, holding them scoreless for 40 minutes before the seasiders salvaged some pride in the latter stages of the game.

Jerome Stack’s troops have gathered momentum over the course of the season and were considered by many to be the most likely threat to Corofin in this Connacht championship, but their chances of living out that ambition will depend heavily on an injury to Brian Stack, who was carried off with a knee injury early in the second half.

The All-Star nominee has been outstanding all year and he continued that form today, completely shutting down Sligo and Coolera-Strandhill talisman Niall Murphy.

Sligo senior stars Murphy, Keelan Cawley and Peter Laffey all struggled to make an impression on this tie, and with U-20 star Mark McDaniel forced out of the game after an injury in the warm-up, Coolera-Strandhill didn’t have the firepower to compete with their opponents.

Even so, to lose the first half by 0-9 to no score would have grated with the visiting side.

Mercurial inside forward Ben O’Carroll ran riot in the early stages with a string of outstanding points, terrorising the Coolera-Strandhill defence. Having been held scoreless from play in the county final – albeit with two direct man-markers for company that day – the Roscommon county attacker was afforded a much easier ride today and he made hay, kicking five of his six points in the first half.

The home side were wind-assisted in that opening half, but there was so much more to their play than that. Eddie Nolan and Shane