Corofin climb to the summit in croke park cracker

By Billy Coss
AT CROKE PARK
Corofin 1-14
Slaughtneil 0-7
 
After 17 years of near misses and heart-breaking defeats in Connacht and further afield, Corofin are back at the summit of club football once more. A landslide ten-point win over Derry’s Slaughtneil saw them not only justify their pre-match favouritism and deliver a second All-Ireland title but confirm their status, beyond any doubt, as the premier club side in the land.
 
Like their predecessors in 1998, this generation of Corofin footballers achieved this the hard way, suffering several hard knocks on the road. There were lulls for the club in the early to mid part of the noughties and some crushing losses to St Brigid’s either side of All-Ireland semi-final defeats to Kilmacud Crokes and St Gall’s. More recently, of course, there was their elimination at the hands of Castlebar Mitchels and in the build-up, manager Stephen Rochford identified that day was a pivotal one in the side’s development in terms of the need to be more ruthless.
 
That cold-blooded streak has been a characteristic of their campaign as more often than not, they’ve driven home their advantage when on top. They did so again in Croke Park in front of an attendance of 29,752 on St Patrick’s Day with a superb first half laying the foundations.
 
It was a terrific performance all round