Galway FC lose ground in promotion race
Galway FC 0
Shelbourne 1
GALWAY FC once again failed to find any home comfort in the league after suffering their fourth defeat in Eamonn Deacy Park on Friday night to effectively end their title hopes, and leave them in a dog-fight with Wexford Youths for the final play-off position at the end of the season.
Friday’s defeat – coupled with the draw between Youths and Finn Harps – means there is just two points between the sides ahead of Friday’s clash in Ferrycarrig Park, a game Galway FC can’t afford to lose if they want to make the promotion play-off.
A win last Friday night would have seen them close to within a point of Shelbourne, but instead Tommy Dunne’s side suffered their fourth defeat in four games at home against the league’s top two – Longford Town and Shelbourne have both taken the maximum six points from their visits to the Dyke Road venue this season.
Galway are 13 points behind Longford and seven behind Shels, and with just eight games remaining, any ideas of winning the title are almost certainly over, and while they can still catch Shels to finish second, the more realistic appraisal is that it will be a battle between Galway and Wexford to see who joins Shels in the play-offs.
Both of the Tolka Park side’s wins have been on a 1-0 scoreline, and while their first win back in April was courtesy of a 93-rd minute strike, the home side had a third of the game to recover from falling behind on Friday night.
However, the Shelbourne goal appeared to knock the confidence of Dunne’s charges, and in truth they never really looked like scoring once Gareth Coughlan had stolen in unmarked on the left to fire the visitors into a 61st minute lead.
Dunne admitted after the game that has side were guilty of rushing things in a bid to get back into the game, a sense of panic which meant there was absolutely no cohesion or fluidity to their attacks, and while the visitors’ back four, and goalkeeper Greg Murray, had looked like being there to be ‘got at’, the home side failed to take advantage of that weakness.
Full report in this week's Connacht Sentinel