Pearses Heading To Croker

Saturday 07.01.2023

Championship Football

Galbally Pearses 4-4 Dunmore MacHales 1-9

Galbally will play Munster Champions Rathmore in the All Ireland Intermediate Final next weekend after the Pearses saw off the dogged challenge of Dunmore MacHales at the St.Loman’s Club in Castlebar on Saturday afternoon.

It was a contest that the Tyrone champions led for most of the way but they fell behind in the 57^th minute. That’s when they showed their character with a brilliantly taken goal from Daniel Kerr to make sure of their place at Croke Park. It was a gutsy display from the men in Blue with Cormac Donnelly outstanding at midfield and Ronan Nugent the man of the match with three superbly taken first half goals.

Nugent had the ball in the net after only three minutes when he kept his cool to first time the ball to the net. Against the wind it was a great start for the Pearses but they then conceded 1-3 without reply with Damien Redington raising a green flag for the Galway men. In the 16^th minute a move involving Conor Quinn, Donnelly and Nugent ended with the latter blasting an unstoppable shot to the roof of the net. A Padraig Costello free briefly restored Dunmore’s lead but in the 22^nd minute Galbally had the advantage again with another Nugent blockbuster this time with his left foot. Liam Rafferty then got their first point as they led 3-1 to 1-5 at halftime.

Costello converted a couple of frees for Dunmore on the restart to close the gap as Galbally failed to score in the third quarter. Daniel Kerr eventually got them up and running but the Galway men looked a batter side when running the ball and a Thomas Gleeson point from play was followed by another Costello free to level matters in the 54^th minute. It was anybody’s game at this stage and with three minutes to go a sixth Costello free had Dunmore in front.

Questions were now being asked of Galbally but straight from Ronan McGeary’s kick out Donnelly took a great catch before playing the ball to Kerr who had only one thing on his mind as he evaded his marker before firing low to the net past keeper Connor Gleeson. It proved to be a massive score in the context of the game and Galbally weren’t going to slip up now with Conor Donaghy converting a free before Nugent fisted a point to give them a deserved victory.

Galbally scorers – Ronan Nugent 3-1, Daniel Kerr 1-1, Liam Rafferty 0-1, Conor Donaghy 0-1 (1F)

Dunmore scorers – Padraig Costello 0-6 (6F), Damien Redington 1-0, Shane McGrath 0-1, Dylan Brady 0-1, Thomas Gleeson 0-1