Bowed heads and long faces

DON’T say the Connacht senior football championship doesn’t mean anything to the Galway management and their players. It does. And given the bowed heads and long faces that drudged wearily from Dr. Hyde Park on Sunday afternoon, more than one would think.There is a reason why the county has 43 provincial titles to its name. Simply, Galway footballers have always prided themselves on their successes. They love to win and they have certainly made a habit out of doing it over the decades. And doing it well.In other words, there is no real mystery as to why Galway lead the honours list in the province. And yet, what was most disappointing about Galway on Sunday was their lack of assurance.One would expect it would have been the Tribesmen who would have set the pace in the 2007 decider, demand that Sligo raise the bar to meet the standard they have been setting for decades, but they didn’t.Instead, it was the victorious men from Yeats County who dictated the proceedings for long periods, playing like men possessed, like players with a purpose. “Sligo were an awful lot a hungrier team than we were today,” confessed Galway selector Peter Warren afterwards.“We thought we were up for this game, but it just didn’t happen for us. They hadn’t won a Connacht title in 32 years; I suppose it was a similar situation to that which we were in when we won the All-Ireland in '98. They were hungry. When you think about it too, they had an awful lot of wides compared to what we had. I mean we could have been beaten by a lot more than a point if they had taken those chances.”In fairness to the Galway management, they did endeavour to rejuvenate their charges by introducing their five substitutes over the course of the second half, but these did not have the same collective desired impact as it had against Leitrim in the Connacht semi-final.“Yeah, we used our full hand today. We tried to spice it up. I suppose Cormac Bane was unlucky to be taken off. We brought on Sean Armstrong, who had a brilliant game against Leitrim, and that’s the way it was. You try to make as many switches to get a better team performance. However, no matter what we did today, and we used our full hand, it just didn’t work for us.“Every part of the field Sligo were hungrier for possession. We gave away an awful lot of ball; they intercepted a huge amount of our passes. So where it should have been an attack for us, they broke it down and attacked themselves, picking off some lovely scores.“But, you know,we still had a chance to tie the game up at the end. Ja (Fallon) was very unlucky not to put that one over. To sum it up overall though, Sligo were really up for it today and they won it fair and square.“Fair play to them. I suppose the one positive for us is that we are still in the championship, that we are still in the hat.”True but...........