Battling Galway boys rattle the champions
Kerry 3-7
Galway 0-9
THE Galway minor footballers’ All-Ireland dreams were dashed at Croke Park on Sunday by history-makers Kerry whose goal scoring prowess helped them to secure a three-in-a-row of titles at this grade for only the second time.
On balance, the Munster champions deserved their victory but they were hardly seven points better than the Tribesmen, who will rue a sub-standard first-half display in which they managed to score just two points, only one from play.
Galway persevered in the face of adversity but never reached the potential they had shown throughout the Summer. They will harbour regrets.
The main one is their sluggish start. A third of the game had elapsed before Galway managed to register their first score. You don’t get away with 20 minutes’ barren spells at this level on the third Sunday in September.
It’s not that Stephen Joyce’s boys didn’t engineer the chances, either. They did – any amount of them, in fact, as Galway performed beyond expectations in the midfield sector, where John Maher, and in particular Céin D’Arcy, imposed themselves.
But the Connacht champions struggled to settle into the game. They were wasteful in possession, taking the wrong options in attack.
They recorded five wides, hit some shots short, and coughed up possession in decent enough attacking positions a couple of times before Desmond Conneely landed Galway’s opening score with a free.
Maher, too, showed serious determination to follow a ‘lost cause’ of a ball that seemed certain to go out harmlessly over the end-line.
The Kerry ‘keeper, Billy Courtney – who displayed more jitters early on than your average stockbroker after Brexit – thought the ball had gone dead and was heading to pick up a spare one for a kick-out.
He had no right to, but the Salthill/Knocknacarra man somehow got a fist to it, and directed it back in play towards the Kerry goalmouth – Courtney woke up just in the nick of time with an instinctive line-clearance. It’s those fine lines that make a difference.
Full coverage in this week's Connacht Tribune