Cooney fears Kelly will give Borris inside track on Thomas’
Conor Cooney reckons Borris-Ileigh boss Johnny Kelly will have the inside track on St Thomas’ having coached with and against many of their players.
Cooney himself played for Kelly when the Portumna man was in charge of the Galway U-21s between 2013 and 2015, as did St Thomas’ colleagues Eanna Burke, Darragh Burke and Shane Cooney.
All of the quartet featured at some stage in All-Ireland U-21 semi-finals for Kelly while the two Burkes and Shane Cooney played in Galway’s 2015 All-Ireland intermediate final win over Cork when Kelly was on the line.
Kelly also has a deep knowledge of the Galway club scene having managed Portumna to All-Ireland success in 2009, all of which he will use against St Thomas’ in Sunday’s AIB All-Ireland club semi-final.
“He’d be well aware of the Galway scene,” said county star Cooney. “He would have had a lot of the lads at different stages in different teams. He’d know us well.”
Powerful forward Cooney, an All-Ireland winner with St Thomas’ in 2013 and with Galway in 2017, described Kelly as a ‘shrewd man’ who will be a ‘big plus for a very good Borris team’.
St Thomas’ are certain to be fully tuned in though after surviving a giant scare at this stage of last year’s All-Ireland series.
The back-to-back Galway champions required a point five minutes into stoppage time from defender David Sherry to shrug off underdogs Cushendall.
“We only won that semi-final by a point, it was a very competitive game,” said Cooney. “Some very competitive teams have come down from the north for these games but that has nothing to do with us this year, we’ve Borris-Ileigh and they’re Munster champions, beat a very good quality team in Ballygunner.”
St Thomas’ naturally fancy a return to the final after losing heavily to Ballyhale Shamrocks last March and if both teams win on Sunday it would be a re-run of 2019.
“Ballyhale were very good, I don’t want to sit here and make excuses or anything,” said Cooney. “Maybe we’d a couple of knocks, injuries, things like that certainly didn’t help. But Ballyhale were just a very good team on the day.”
The frustration kicked on into the summer for Cooney who injured his shoulder and missed out on the Tribesmen’s defeat to Dublin in the Leinster championship, ending their campaign.
I hurt my shoulder in the game against Wexford, tried to play on with it, probably wasn’t a great idea,” he said. “I never got back after that game (with the county team). It was just a matter of time with it, an AC joint. It’s 100 per cent now again.
Fintan Burke is also fit again for St Thomas’ after a rapid recovery from cruciate knee ligament damage suffered in that club final against Ballyhale.
“He played a big part for us when he came on in the county final,” said Cooney, who reckons the 22-year-old will join him in the Galway setup shortly. “I couldn’t speak highly enough of him, fantastic attitude.”
