Galway scrape home to book place in final

Galway 0-17Dublin 0-15

STEPHEN GLENNONAT PEARSE STADIUM

LIFE is never dull for followers of Galway hurling – Sunday’s National League game in Pearse Stadium being a case in point.

Trailing by a point with less than five minutes of normal time remaining in this dour contest, the Tribesmen were forced to dig as deep as they had done in the snatch and grab victory over Kilkenny a week previous to secure the two invaluable league points on offer to book their place in the 2010 League decider.

Yes, this penultimate round robin National League tie was scrappy, lacking fluidity and, generally, an affront to hurling in its purist form, but from a Galway perspective at least, it was encouraging to see the team show the heart, character and will to graft out a positive result.Indeed, too often in the past, Galway have come out the wrong side of games such as these, but in their most recent clashes against Offaly, Kilkenny and Dublin they have displayed no small amount of courage in etching out victories.

However, the Galway management and the players themselves will not be wholly satisfied with their performance. Between the second and 66th minutes of this contest, Galway failed to register a single score from play, instead relying on the dead ball accuracy of midfielder Ger Farragher – along with a sublime sideline cut from the returning Joe Canning – to keep the scoreboard ticking over.

In truth, though, that was the nature of this game, which really descended into an untidy mess after the sending offs of Galway centre-half forward Cyril Donnellan and Dublin full-back Tómas Brady on 27 minutes. From afar, the altercation looked to be nothing more than ‘handbags stuff’, but when referee Barry Kelly entered the fray – and could be seen trying to climb in between the embrace of the two men – well, his blood was then up and there was only going to be one outcome.

One would have thought that the reduction of both teams to 14 men would have opened up the play, but, instead, the opposite occurred. Both management teams, initially at least, deployed their unmarked man into the heart of their respective defences, which closed down the options available to their opposing forwards.

For more, read this week's Connacht Tribune.