Galway show plenty of steel in dismissing Armagh

ARMAGH 0-12

IT might not have been fresh caviar but Galway footballers still served up a wholesome enough dish at the Armagh Athletic Grounds on Sunday to grind out a deserved victory in this 2B qualifying round tie.

This was probably never going to be a free-flowing occasion given Armagh’s ultra-defensive set-up under Kieran McGeeney, but Galway displayed a solid mix of the more artisan qualities of patience and resolve to see them through a tense encounter.

In the end, Galway might have been leaning against the ropes as Armagh pressed for a levelling goal, but over the course of the 70 minutes, Kevin Walsh’s charges were the better balanced team – solid enough in defence, having an edge in midfield, as well as posing a more general threat in attack.

A scoring drought for Galway in the final 20 minutes, when they failed to raise a white flag, did leave them in a vulnerable position as the 9,400 home crowd in the superbly appointed Athletic Grounds, bayed for a late rally, but really it should never have been that close.

In a match where both defensive blankets tended to smother most attacks, a goal was always likely to be the great divide between success and failure – seven minutes into the second half when Damien Comer flicked a Paul Conroy free to the net, the pressure was on Armagh.

Comer’s goal put Galway into a 1-10 to 0-8 lead and when Danny Cummins – a half-time substitute for Sean Denvir – and Gary Sice (free) added further points, Armagh were seven behind with 21 minutes left on the clock.

Strangely, Sice’s 49th minute close range free – a score that had its root in a powerful tackle by Damien Comer – was to be Galway’s last white flag of the game. At least three clear-cut point chances were missed, scores that would have killed off Armagh.

All’s well that ends well though, and Galway’s only real scare in the closing quarter came when Jamie Clarke went to ground inside the square as the Armagh crowd roared for a penalty – in real time it never looked like a spot-kick award, a view reinforced in subsequent analysis of the incident.

McGeeney’s Armagh won’t win over many neutral fans with their style of play and that probably doesn’t bother them too much either, but even in the final quarter when Armagh needed to chase down the game, they often had 10 to 12 players inside their own half of the field.

Their style of play is based on wearing down the opposition with a massed defence and then breaking quickly to exploit the space at the other end of the pitch – Galway had to respond in kind and they were always conscious of leaving their house unguarded when they launched attacks.

Full match report in this week's Connacht Tribune.