St Brigid’s joy at emphatic win tempered by injury to Brian Stack

Connacht SFC quarter-final: St Brigid’s (Roscommon) 0-13 Coolera-Strandhill (Sligo) 1-3

St Brigid’s were even more dominant in Dy Hyde Park on Sunday than the winning margin suggested, and they will go into next weekend’s Connacht semi-final against Mohill of Leitrim with no concerns about their form after brushing aside Coolera-Strandhill.

An ankle injury to Ruaidhrí Fallon and what looked to be a much more serious knee injury to All-Star nominee Brian Stack will be a source of much more anxiety, however, both with next week’s game in mind and with one eye on greater tests ahead.

Certainly in terms of quality, the Roscommon club are entitled to think big. They were in sumptuous form in the first half of this encounter and were full value for their 0-9 to no score half-time lead.

Stack was central to that with an excellent man-marking job on Coolera-Strandhill talisman Niall Murphy, even if the Sligo senior star missed two very scorable chances in that opening half. But all across the field, Jerome Stack’s side were impressive.

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Fallon, Pearse Frost and Shane Cunnane came up with outstanding turnovers thanks to precision tackling, while Cunnane and Eddie Nolan dominated midfield.

The star of the show was corner forward Ben O’Carroll, who shot five of those nine first half-points, four of them from play. Conor Hand and Bobby Nugent also chipped in with impressive points, but O’Carroll’s dancing feet and his excellent finishing tore Coolera-Strandhill apart.

That lead was pushed out to 10 when O’Carroll won and converted a free four minutes into the second half, but Coolera-Strandhill dug their heels in from there and salvaged some pride, starting with an Adam Higgins effort in the 40th minute, curled over with his right foot from 35 metres out.

Leo Doherty added their goal and also picked up a late red card, but the story of the game was Stack’s injury, and St. Brigid’s face an anxious wait to see if he will be fit to play any further part in this campaign.

St Brigid’s: C Sheehy; S Trundle, B Stack, P Frost; R Stack, A Daly, R Fallon; E Nolan (0-1), S Cunnane; R Dolan, P McGrath (0-1), C Hand (0-2); B O’Carroll (0-6, 0-2 frees), C Sugrue, B Nugent (0-2). Subs: M Sugrue for Trundle (half-time), L Griselain for B Stack (44), B Derwin for Hand (47), B O’Hara Duggan for Fallon (49), J Cunningham (0-1) for Dolan (55).

Coolera-Strandhill: K Harte; L Bree, S Taylor (0-1), J Cassidy; A Higgins (0-1), R O’Carroll, R Doherty; K Banks, P Laffey; L Doherty (1-0), K Cawley (0-1), S Murphy; J Walsh, N Murphy, O McDonagh. Subs: C Burke for Walsh (half-time), D Flynn for McDonagh (45), K Harte for Higgins (60+3), E Comerford for R Doherty (60+3), B Cawley for Bree (60+3).

Referee: Thomas Murphy (Galway)