Mayo SHC final: Terrific Tooreen fulfil six-in-a-row dream

by Aiden Henry

Tooreen retained their Connacht Gold Mayo senior hurling championship title following a comprehensive win over Ballyhaunis in the final by 2-29 to 0-20 at Hastings Insurance McHale Park, Castlebar.

As the scoreline suggests, this was an emphatic performance by Tooreen.

Once David Delaney scored two goals in the first quarter it was always going to be a huge task for Ballyhaunis.

Despite battling very hard, Ballyhaunis were never really able to strike a telling blow as Tooreen were in no mood to let their early advantage in this county final slip.

Playing with the aid of the breeze in the opening half, Tooreen had the better of the exchanges in the opening half and made this advantage count where it mattered most, on the scoreboard.

After both sides exchanged points on three occasions in the opening five minutes, a David Delaney shot for goal seemed destined to be saved by Ballyhaunis goalkeeper Donal O’Brien.

However, the ball slide off his stick and ended up in the net.

This goal spurred on Tooreen as they followed with three more points before they scored a second goal in the 13th minute.

This time the goal came after a shot by Oisin Greally came back of the post into the waiting hands of Fionn Delaney, who in turn passed to David Delaney who drove a cracking shot to the back of the net.

That gave Tooreen a four-point lead, 2-6 to 0-8, at the end of the first quarter.

In the second quarter Tooreen continued to make the most of their scoring chances where they outscored their opponents by eight points to three.

Three of these points came from frees by goalkeeper Bobby Douglas.

It left the reigning champions in a very commanding position as they headed for the interval break leading by nine points, 2-14 to 0-11.

On the resumption Tooreen continued to make good use of their scoring chances by adding six points to their tally in the third quarter while Ballyhaunis only raised four white flags.

It could have been worse for Ballyhaunis as Tooreen’s Bobby Douglas missed a penalty in the 36th minute.

But if Ballyhaunis had a huge hill to climb as the game approached the final quarter, they had a mountain to climb when they were reduced to 14 players after Jason Coyne was given his marching orders by the referee for an infringement.

In the final quarter the only thing to be decided was what would be Tooreen's winning margin.

In that final quarter they went on to add nine more points to their tally.

In fairness to Ballyhaunis they never threw in the towel and kept battling away until the bitter end.

In the final analysis, few could argue that Tooreen were by far the better team on the day and fully deserved their resounding victory.

They will now go on to play the Roscommon champions in the Connacht club championship on the October bank holiday weekend.