Galway make short work of outclassed exiles

New York 0-8

NEW York was always going to be ‘one of those games’ for Galway: damned if you do and damned if you don’t.

Red-hot favourites to advance to the Connacht quarter-finals, if Galway somehow managed to lose Stateside, it’d send a tremor through the GAA World across the Atlantic Ocean; win, which they did, comfortably in the end, and it barely registers a ripple.

When they win it, by 16-points, everyone says ‘of course you did, sure it’s only New York’. And they’d be right. Though New York put up some strong early resistance, particularly the first 20 minutes, a shock was never really on.

Managed by Kerryman, Ian Galvin, New York are physical, fit, organised and committed to the cause. But they are limited. Though many players have inter-county experience, at best New York are playing at a standard of a fairly decent club side, although PJ Banville, the former Wexford forward, was as good as any player on show and bagged all bar one of the Exiles’ eight scores.

Despite a very sluggish opening quarter, Galway did enough to win, and win well, with notable displays from Damien Comer and Shane Walsh who each tallied 1-4. They got their 2015 Connacht Championship campaign off the ground but it’s hard to read too much into this performance and it’s difficult to gauge where Galway ‘are at’ in their development.

There are so many factors in the mix that it can almost be discounted.  There’s the travel – the flight to the Big Apple is six hours, and add in the five-hour time difference. Irish people aren’t ‘made’ for 26 degrees Celsius sun – the heat in the Bronx was punishing even for spectators, never mind the players.

Throw in the unfamiliar, and unorthodox, synthetic surface; the unusual throw-in time (it was 8pm back home); strange food and surrounds; and the fact that five of the panel got a mystery bug, including goal-keeper Brian O’Donoghue, who had  to withdraw five minutes before throw-in after throwing-up behind the end-line. Tom Healy got the nod in goal while Eddie Hoare and Comer were late changes for bug-hit Michael Lundy and Patrick Sweeney. All things considered, is it any wonder Galway couldn’t get motoring early?

When they adjusted and did get going, Galway over-ran New York, whose challenge fizzled out the longer the match went on. This was all about the result, though. Galway was never going to learn too much about their championship credentials from this fixture; that will become clearer against Leitrim on Sunday week.

And yet it wasn’t a completely wasted exercise. The four or five nights abroad will do no harm for team bonding. Man-of-the-match, Damien Comer, bagged his first senior championship goal; Tom Flynn and Danny Cummins, who were sidelined with injury for parts of the National League, returned to the fray. Killanin’s Cathal Sweeney, Seán Denvir and Peadar Óg Ó Gríofa from CLG Micheál Breathnach made their senior championship debuts; and Paddy Naughton came on as a late substitute, to become the first Barna player to represent Galway at senior since current selector Seán Conlon lined-out in 1994.

Full report in this week's Connacht Tribune.