St Gall's find their rhythm

St Gall's1-15 Tempo 0-9:St Gall's were in a ruthless mood in Brewster Park yesterday, inflicting a heavy defeat on Fermanagh champions Tempo.

The 2010 All-Ireland champions had waited five weeks since their Antrim final victory and they were devastating in the first-half.

They led by 1-12 to 0-3 at half-time, with Antrim midfielder Aodhán Gallagher capitalising on a defensive lapse before the break to drill the ball to the net.

The damage was done long before that as they were 0-6 to 0-1 ahead after 10 minutes and already cruising to victory.

It’s early days in terms of Ulster and All-Ireland club ambitions, but St Gall’s, the current All-Ireland sevens champions, showed they will be a team to be reckoned with this winter.

Their performance, however, must be measured against the quality of opposition and Tempo gave St Gall’s far too much room to build attacks.

Tempo did have a really good spell in the third quarter and actually won the second-half by 0-6 to 0-3.

Having scored only 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 displays. The three McGourty brothers had all scored from play inside the first 18 minutes, and 11 different players scored from play over the hour.

St Gall’s will play Kilcoo in the semi-final in two weeks’ time.

TEMPO: S Jackson; J Gilmurray; A Breen; R Foy; C Foy; D Kelly; PJ Rogers; N McElroy; N Rogers; C Meehan; C McElroy (0-4); R Bogue; D Keenan (0-4, three frees); T Campbell (0-1); R Keenan. Subs: T Dunne for PJ Rogers (23 mins); R Ingram for Meehan (43); D Campbell for Gilmurray (55). ST GALL’S: C Kerr; P Veronica; A McClean; M Kelly (0-1); A Healy; S Kelly (0-1); T O’Neill (0-1); S Burke (0-2); A Gallagher (1-0); Kevin McGourty (0-2); K Niblock (0-2); Kieran McGourty (0-1); C McGourty (0-3, one free); M Pollock (0-1); K Stewart (0-1). Subs: N O’Neill for Kevin McGourty (24 mins); D O’Hare for Burke (49); C Burke for Veronica (55); B Bradley for C McGourty (60). Referee: Cathal O’Hagan (Tyrone).