Galway's footballers restore some pride
Galway's footballers must dust down and regroup after Sunday’s 3-14 to 0-16 Connacht final defeat to Mayo, as they set their sights on tackling an improving Tipperary outfit in the All-Ireland qualifier series.
Alan Mulholland’s men face the Premier County on Saturday week, July 26, at Tullamore (7pm) in a repeat of last June’s qualifier in Salthill, which Galway won – but not with any conviction.
The beaten provincial finalists can look forward to that encounter with some confidence, however, because, despite losing to the 2013 All-Ireland runners-up, there were many positives to be gleaned from Galway’s display at McHale Park, Castlebar.
The big plus is Galway played with pride and honour and stayed going until the end, traits they couldn’t be accused of possessing in the record semi-final defeat to Mayo in Pearse Stadium last summer.
In truth, a physically more robust, more experienced and more seasoned Mayo side were always in control of this decider. For long stretches, James Horan’s men bullied Galway in the middle third of the field, and pounced on nearly all of the breaking balls at kick-out time, which strangled the visitors in the first-half.
Mayo were clinical and showed composure to build a lead but Galway were the architects of their own downfall, too. Galway kicked 11 wides over the 70 minutes, were unlucky not to convert three clear-cut goal chances – they hit the woodwork twice and shaved it once – and had a penalty excellently saved by Robert Hennelly.
For all that it would be remiss to give the impression that this was some sort of Galway hard-luck story – Mayo missed several major and minor scoring chances and were full value for the win . . . it was that sort of game.
At least Galway were creating the chances though, and showed serious signs of a team that is taking shape and that has the potential for a bright future, again something that wasn’t evident after losing to Mayo last year.