Loughrea manager Tommy Kelly credited the commitment of his players after winning back-to-back Galway senior hurling championship titles on Saturday.

A 1-15 to 1-14 win over St Thomas’ at Pearse Stadium saw Loughrea recording their club’s fourth Tom Callinan Cup success and retain it for the first time.

The holders would have to come through a late scare to do so, with Conor Cooney netting a goal deep in injury-time to keep the heat on them until the final whistle.

“I’m on top of the world, it’s amazing,” Kelly said afterwards. “When you start out hurling, you’re dreaming of winning a county cup with your club and they’re so hard to win.

“We know how hard they are to win, and tonight again it was down to a puck of a ball. That’s so much credit to St Thomas’ that they had that in the locker.”

On surviving the late push from St Thomas’ to retain their title in Salthill, Kelly said: “We knew that was coming, we knew they were going to come with a push. It was how far we could get ahead of them before that push came.

“So it’s all about reaction and the goal Conor Cooney hit there was a bullet, and if you had ten goalies, you wouldn’t block it.”

He added: “The commitment of our lads right through the year, we have 35 guys on the panel and I’m not codding you, most of them could be on any club team around the place.”

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