Galway unfairly singled out for what nearly all teams are doing
Inside Track with John McIntyre
IT’S probably Galway football’s purist tradition which is continuing to see the Tribesmen getting a harder time from the critics than any of the other defensively-minded football teams out there. It’s as if the stacking of numbers behind the ball should be beneath them as it was never the Galway way.
The likes of Tyrone and Donegal may have rolled out the tactic of the massed defence, but Galway’s adoption of the same strategy over the past two seasons appears to have really irked the likes of pundit Colm O’Rourke, who was having another cut at Kevin Walsh’s charges after Sunday’s narrow loss to Kerry at Tuam Stadium.
O’Rourke, who was dissecting Galway’s display on RTE’s league highlights show, was again unimpressed by their approach and though the former Meath great seems to be fixated with how the men in maroon go about their business when many other teams are at the same lark, he does have a point in suggesting that the team’s attacking style hasn’t evolved.
O’Rourke drew attention to Galway’s slow and often lateral build-ups which leaves them lacking a real cutting edge. He focused on the team’s modest scoring returns – just seven points against Dublin, for instance – in the league so far and argues that they still have to get the balance right between defence and attack. Though Galway are a soft target, there is obviously some need to add penetration to their forward line.
Mind you, that was hardly the reason why they lost by a solitary point to Kerry in another less than riveting encounter. Galway were actually doing fine – level at three points all after 26 minute and playing into the wind – until Barry McHugh picked up a black card. From there to half-time, the Kingdom took advantage with five unanswered points, with goalkeeper Ruairi Lavelle doing superbly to flick a Gavin O’Brien rasper over the crossbar.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
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