Galway youths on the brink of league history
Date Published: {J}
Mike Rafferty
THE ultimate honour in Youth football has never being won by Galway and over the next few weeks at both representative and club level, the opportunity is there for a double reward.This Sunday in Drom at 3pm, the Galway and District Youth side face the Wicklow League in the final of the FAI Youth Inter League and to the winners will go the honour of winning the title for the first time. About half the squad is made up of Mervue United players and for them this is the first of two big games as they qualified for the FAI Youth Cup final last weekend and will face either Nenagh or Fairview Rangers on May 23rd.The local league is lucky to have such a talented side that can reach this decider on successive years with last season’s campaign caming to a horrible conclusion when they forfeited a two goal lead in Terryland Park before eventually losing on penalties to the AUL.The current campaign has also been successful one as Galway qualified from a group that included Clare, Roscommon and the Combined Counties as they maintained an unbeaten record. Mayo provided the opposition at the quarter final stage in Drom and were far more comprehensibly beaten than the 3-1 scoreline suggests. Paul Scally, Pat Huban and Gary Kelly all found the range for a side were streets ahead of the visitors.The semi final draw pitted the Tribesmen away to Waterford and a superb performance was capped by another 3-1 victory. They took full advantage of the considerable elements in the opening half as goals by Dan Cunningham and Brian Gaffney had them two up at the break, before Conor Murray added a third just after the restart and thereafter a controlled performance saw them through the rest of the game.Wicklow’s path was no less easy as a win over Kildare and a draw against Carlow set up a winner take all situation against Mick Wallace’s Wexford in the final group game and a Keith Armstrong goal gave them a 1-0 win as they topped the section.For more, read this week's Galway City Tribune.