Galway need to toughen up!

Sligo 2-14Galway 0-15

FRANK FARRAGHER AT PEARSE STADIUM

ANY notions that Galway footballers were on a short cut back to former glories were well and truly dissipated at Pearse Stadium on Saturday evening when Sligo turned on an intensity tap that powered them to a deserved and, in the end, quite a comprehensive Connacht semi-final victory.

It is not the end of the world for Galway football, and the rebuilding process currently in place must continue, but it was a temporary setback of quite dramatic proportions as Sligo played out a second half with a ferocity and tempo that Alan Mulholland’s side just couldn’t match.

The pre-match odds, which apparently at one point on Saturday had Sligo at 13/2, verged on the insane given the recent championship history of the sides, and as Galway lick their wounds this week they will be mindful of the fact that hunger is the great sauce of championship football.

At different stages of the first half when Galway led by 0-5 to 0-1 and 0-9 to 0-4, they seemed to be on the very cusp of delivering that knock-out blow, but alas it never arrived, and when Sligo regrouped at half-time just four points in arrears, the game was about to undergo one massive sea change.

There are a lot mind games in football and somewhere during that 15 minute half-time break, Galway slipped into a comfort zone where they believed that their main task of the day was done – by contrast, across the dressingroom tunnel, Sligo manager Kevin Walsh ignited rockets of energy in his side and the rest is history.

It was though hard to see at half-time where the Sligo recovery might come from. True, they had defended tenaciously but had conceded a high ratio of frees that Galway took advantage of fully but Kevin Walsh’s side had struggled to get a 40% break from the midfield exchanges.

From limited possession pickings, there were danger signs showing in the Galway defence. David Kelly was very lively in the corner of the Sligo attack, Pat Hughes and Alan Costello were also showing well for the ball, while full forward Adrian Marren was giving Finian Hanley a lot of problems.

Still with Joe Bergin turning in a very strong first half performance in midfield, it did seem improbable that Sligo would win enough primary possession from this sector in the second half to give their lively forward line a consistent supply of ball. What transpired though rocked Galway’s championship ambitions to the core.

Sligo took control of the midfield exchanges with the physical power of young Shane McManus ably complemented by a whole series of second phase possession wins by Charlie Harrison, Paul McGovern, Brendan Egan, Pat Hughes and Alan Costello. Inexorably the bulk of the second period ended up being played in the Galway half of the field.

Adrian Marren’s torment of Finian Hanley and the Galway defence continued into the third quarter, and midway through the half when the sides were level at 0-10 apiece, the whole balance of this game shifted. Sligo were winning breaks everywhere, they were steaming forward in numbers, and Galway just couldn’t match their fervour in the majority of the hand-to-hand combats.

Galway needed to tackle two main problem areas early in the second half – midfield, and the massive influence of Adrian Marren in the heart of the Sligo attack, but the issues largely went unaddressed.

Michael Meehan and Padraic Joyce were introduced to attack, but Galway’s acute difficulties were not in that sector. Something dramatic had to be tried in a bid to curb Sligo’s possession monopoly.

Maybe moves like the introduction of Fionntán Ó Curraoin; a decision to leave Thomas Flynn in a midfield position rather than substituting him with a forward; the pulling back of Gary Sice as a sweeper in front of his own ‘45’, could all have helped to disrupt the Sligo rhythm, while another marker was needed far earlier to try and put Marren off his game.

For more, read this week's Connacht Tribune.