Scoil Ruain aim to turn the tables on St Bridgets

ST BRIDGETS Vocational School, Loughrea are chasing a record fourth All-Ireland A SHC title in-a-row when they play Scoil Ruain (Killenaule) at Thurles on Sunday (1.45 pm).

Backboned by six of last year’s all conquering team, the Galway school will be favourites to retain their title against a side that has made heavy work of reaching the decider.

Killenaule mentor Francis Kearney argues that the final, the third between the schools, affords his side the opportunity to finally break their duck.

“We have three junior A All-Ireland titles, but no senior. We failed to Loughrea in two finals and don’t intend to let them make it a hat-trick,” said Kearney.

“Our form this year has been up and down, but I feel there is one big game in our lads, and hopefully tomorrow is the day they will produce it. There will have to be a big improvement in form from the semi-final against Causeway. We were poor that day, but it was our first competitive match since the quarter-final win over St Brogans last November.”

Over in the west, Loughrea mentor Jim Wall is looking forward to a rousing contest but is taking nothing for granted. “We have been steadily building a reputation for ourselves in the school and like our opponents, we have produced some outstanding players for various Galway inter-county teams.

“Tomorrow our captain Niall Healy will be hoping to emulate the feat of his brother Fergal who led the school to its first All-Ireland title back in 1995. “Matches between Galway and Tipperary, no matter what the grade are always very close affairs and I expect tomorrow’s final to be no exception.

“It would be tremendous achievement for the school to win four All-Ireland senior titles in a row, and we’ll be in there battling very hard to create our own little bit of history.”

The defending champions’ challenge will be led by Mark Herlihy who is an excellent goalkeeper, Donal Nevin, Donal Reilly and Maurice Callinan. Scoil Ruain made very hard work of beating Causeway in the semi-final and had to come from eight points down to eventually win by one.

Perhaps they underestimated the Kerry school, but there is no fear of that tomorrow. Team coach Gerry Maguire will have his side well tutored in what is required and if Niall Teehan, Kevin Kenny, Keith Holohan and Shane Long strike form, Scoil Ruain could cause an upset.