Galway end Mayo’s dreams of a sixth successive Connacht title

MAYO 0-12

Hands on heart, we didn’t see it coming, but then again neither did Mayo, as over the course of a dank Saturday evening in Castlebar, the balance of power in Connacht football took a most unexpected turn.

Mayo, with five Connacht titles in a row under their belts, were almost unbackable favourites in this provincial semi-final, but Galway’s mix of hunger and almost demonic tenacity proved too much for Stephen Rochford’s charges.

It mightn’t have been a spectacular evening of open football at McHale Park — indeed for long stretches it was tight, defensive and at times even dour — but right from the opening exchanges there was a dogged determination about Galway’s play.

Pre-match fears amongst the minority of maroon supporters in the quite decent crowd of 21,784 that the Mayo forwards would ‘cut loose’ against the Galway backs proved to be completely unfounded — over the 70 minutes of quite intense action, the home attack never created as much as one goal chance.

Championship new boys in defence for Galway like goalkeeper Bernard Power and the full-back line of Eoghan Kerin, Declan Kyne and David Wynne played with a focus and grit that almost completely snuffed out the Mayo attacking threat.

Goalkeeper Power survived one early fright when his crossfield free was nearly intercepted, but overall, his kick-outs mixed accuracy with distance in just the right measure.

Galway, for the first time in a long while, also stood up to the physical power of Mayo around the midfield sector, where Paul Conroy in particular won a lot of hard early ball with Tom Flynn providing plenty of back-up support.

Half an hour into the match when a Johnny Heaney powerful goal effort was tipped over the bar by Robbie Hennelly, Galway led by 0-5 to 0-2, as their supporters dared to dream of an unexpected success.

Mayo had been ultra-cautious in that opening 30 minutes, pulling Kevin McLoughlin back as an extra defender; while their half backline seemed strangely reluctant to make the lightning breaks into attack that characterised their game over recent years.

Galway’s early points had come from Gary Sice and the opportunist Eamon Brannigan (two apiece), and Shane Walsh, but there had been early signs of unease in the Mayo defence.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.