Joyce and Bradshaw back for footballers' vital league clash

Date Published: 30-Mar-2011

NATIONAL League football matches don’t come more important than this one. Beat Armagh at the Armagh Athletic Grounds on Sunday (2.30pm) and Galway give themselves a fighting chance of retaining division one status.

Lose, and this management team and squad of players will suffer the ignominy of being the first senior football team from the county to have been relegated from a league division in 16 years, with one round still remaining. The stakes are high.

With two wins from five matches, and four league points, it looks like Armagh are safe but mathematically they’re not and the reality is this is a must win match for them too, with Mayo, Monaghan and Galway snapping at their heels and in with a chance of surviving at the northerners’ expense.

This fact was emphasised by Armagh manager Paddy O’Rourke who this week has made no secret about the fact that his side needs a win against Galway to guarantee their division status – the last thing he wants is to have to travel to Cork the following week in need of a result against the All-Ireland champions, who might still be pushing for a league final spot.

The last occasion these two counties met in the league was in 2007, when both teams were flirting with relegation as well. Galway failed to score in the first 35 minutes in Pearse Stadium and trailed by six points at the break but Peter Forde’s men bounced back to win by two in the second half. Armagh were subsequently relegated.The travails of Galway so far under manager Tomás Ó Flatharta are well documented but there were signs of ‘green shoots’ appearing in their plucky resistance that ultimately failed a fortnight ago against Cork. This Sunday will indicate if that was a temporary blip in Galway’s decline or whether it has given the necessary confidence booster to drive the Tribesmen on to record their first win of the campaign.

There is mixed news on the injury front this week: Pádraic Joyce, though not fully match fit, has returned to full training and despite taking a knock to his nose over the weekend, will more than likely be sprung from the bench on Sunday. The versatile Gareth Bradshaw, who has been sidelined for about two months with a hamstring injury, is also back and may feature at some stage.

A scan on Michael Meehan last week showed that while he won’t take part in any league match this year, the Caltra man should return for the championship, in eleven weeks.

See full preview in this week's Connacht Tribune.