Devastating St Gall’s fire title warning

Tempo (Fermanagh) 0-09 St Gall’s (Antrim) 1-15

The 2010 All-Ireland Club football champions were superb in Enniskillen yesterday, with nine different players getting on the scoresheet in a whirlwind first-half.

They led 1-12 to 0-3 at half-time, Antrim midfielder Aodhan Gallagher pouncing on a defensive lapse by Tempo sub Tommy Dunne just before the break to drill the ball low into the net. But the damage was done long before that as they were 0-6 to 0-1 ahead after 10 minutes and already cruising to victory.

St Gall’s performance must be measured, however, against the quality of opposition and Tempo were poor in the first-half. They didn’t press the man in possession and gave St Gall’s far too much room to build attacks.

The Fermanagh champions did have a really good spell in the third quarter and actually won the second-half 0-7 to 0-3.

Having only scored one point from play in the entire first-half, from Ciarán McElroy in the eighth minute, they managed three from play inside the opening two minutes of the second-half. McElroy hit two of those on a day when he was the most potent Tempo forward.

St Gall’s had a lot of good players. The three McGourty brothers had all scored from play inside the first 18 minutes and 11 different players scored from play over the hour, compared to just three from Tempo.

Scorers for Tempo: C McElroy 0-4, D Keenan 0-4 (3f), T Campbell 0-1

Scorers for St Gall’s: C McGourty 0-3 (1f), A Gallagher 1-0, Kevin McGourty, K Niblock, S Burke all 0-2 each, M Kelly, S Kelly, T O’Neill, Kieran McGourty, M Pollock, K Stewart all 0-1 each

TEMPO: S Jackson; J Gilmurray, A Breen, R Foy; C Foy, D Kelly, PJ Rogers; N McElroy, N Rogers; C Meehan, C McElroy, R Bogue; D Keenan, T Campbell, R Keenan

Subs: T Dunne for PJ Rogers 23mins, R Ingram for Meehan 43mins, D Campbell for Gilmurray 55mins

ST GALL’S: C Kerr; P Veronica, A McClean, M Kelly; A Healy, S Kelly, T O’Neill; S Burke, A Gallagher; Kevin McGourty, K Niblock, Kieran McGourty; C McGourty, M Pollock, K Stewart

Subs: N O’Neill for Kevin McGourty 24mins, D O’Hare for Burke 49mins, C Burke for Veronica 55mins, B Bradley for C McGourty 60mins

Referee: Cathal O’Hagan (Tyrone).