MAGIC MEEHAN
Sammon hails star as one of Galway’s greatest
GALWAY football legend Liam Sammon has hailed Michael Meehan as one of the county’s all-time greats. The retirement of the Caltra ace had been anticipated after the 33year-old’s unexpected comeback this year yielded no more than a late cameo role from the bench in the fourth round qualifier rout of Donegal.
‘He was as good a player as we had in a long time. I would rank him in our top group of all-time forwards that this county has produced,’ said Sammon, who managed Meehan to a Connacht title success in 2008.
It was something of a miracle that Meehan had made it back at all, having opted out at the start of 2014 as a result of a problematic ankle injury.
That led to reports that Meehan’s career was over, and the Galway County Board was forced to issue a statement that the Caltra forward had not ‘retired’ but was a taking a year out.
That turned into four years but this spring Kevin Walsh, perhaps seduced by the notion that Meehan could team up with the outof-retirement Sean Armstrong, convinced him to roll the dice one more time.
The pair were labelled the terrible twins after they famously combined to shoot 6-3 in the 2005 AllIreland Under-21 final win over Down.
Even so, it was Meehan who always had star billing; his talent evident from his college career with St Jarlath’s who he captained to a Hogan Cup in 2002.
The younger brother of All-Ireland winners Declan and Tomas, he had the bloodlines as well as the ability to go the very top.
And when Caltra met Kerry’s An Gaeltacht in the 2008 All-Ireland club final, it pitted football’s two most famed band of brothers against each other on a day when the Meehans would trump the Ó Sé’s
In many ways that was merely the appetiser of what was to come when Galway and Kerry met later in that year’s All-Ireland quarterfinal, but while this time it was the Kingdom who prevailed it would go down as Meehan’s finest hour
Played in monsoon-like conditions — despite an early evening throw-in time the floodlights had to be switched on at half-time — he produced an extraordinary performance, scoring 0-10, including six points from play, while being marked by Marc Ó Sé who the previous season had been named footballer of the year.
Sammon ranks it as one of the most memorably individual performances he ever witnessed.
‘It was one of those evenings where the ball seemed to come right for him every time and he made great use of it.
‘He shot over some unbelievable points that night and you could sense the feeling that night that everyone in the stadium knew that he was simply not going to miss.
‘It was a staggering performance because the conditions were just horrific and yet he was completely unfazed,’ recalls Sammon.
But that would turn-out to be the high point of his inter-county career, failing to add to his three Connacht medals after that.
Worse, his career would be cruelly compromised by injuries, the most serious of which was the ankle injury that severely restricted his capacity to train.
‘It was a tragedy for Galway football that he got injured so early in his career and he struggled as a result.
‘He wasn’t able to train and if he did train he was not able to do anything for days after. It was a huge blow for the county because Pádraic Joyce’s career was also coming to an end and they complemented each other so well.
‘Pádraic could thread the ball through the eye of a needle and Michael was such a natural finisher — you pretty much went from a situation where you had both to where you had none.
‘When Pádraic retired, Michael was left with that mantle of leadership but there was no-one to replace Michael,’ reflected Sammon.
The comfort for the current Galway manager is that a new generation of leaders has emerged, not least in an attack that boasts the power of Damian Comer, speed of Shane Walsh and promise of Michael Daly.
A healthy Meehan would have teased even more from their potential, but Galway’s fragility is at the other end of the field these days.
It is anticipated that experienced full-back Finian Hanley is to also retire; the 33-year-old had been on the fringes for the past couple of seasons and was sidelined with a cruciate injury this summer.
But there was a reminder this August of the value of a full fit Hanley when Walsh was forced to gamble by paying the inexperienced David Walsh at full-back in an effort to counter Kieran Donaghy’s threat in this year’s All-Ireland quarter-final, which backfired horribly. And Sammon warns that finding a long-time replacement to Hanley has become Walsh’s most pressing issue. ‘Finian was badly missed because he had the experience of marking big-game players, and the problem is that we have not been able to fill his positon and that is a real problem going forward for Galway.’