REVENGE IN THE AIR FOR GALWAY

AFTER seeing off Tyrone on their return to the top tier, Galway now face successive games against the two teams they beat in last year’s Championship.

The victory in Tuam was crucial having just come up from Division Two after a seven-year absence and insulates Kevin Walsh’s side ahead of two tough assignments against Donegal in Letterkenny tomorrow before Mayo come to Pearse Stadium seven days later.

“We were delighted to get the win on the board and get the two points,” said Galway defender Cathal Sweeney (above).

“It was important to get off to a good start because you are going to need to win all your home games if you are to stay in Division One.

“It sets up for the Donegal game but we know that we have a few things to improve on for that.”

If their performances against Mayo and particularly Donegal, who they beat by 15 points, last summer were impressive then they fell well short of those standards against Roscommon and Kerry.

As satisfying as their wins over Mayo in the last two years have been, they’ve ultimately carried a hollow ring.

“Look, Mayo have gone after that to reach two All-ireland finals and have gone toe-to-toe with Dublin,” said Sweeney.

“It doesn’t mean much for us to beat them in Connacht and to then see them go on further than us. Roscommon caught us last year and that was really disappointing and so was the Kerry game, but we want to put that behind us and build again.”

Losing the Connacht final stunted Galway’s progress and meant that they were always going to face a more testing opponent come the All-ireland quarter-final, but Sweeney said: “We went against

Kerry on the back of a brilliant performance against Donegal. Unfortunately it just didn’t happen against Kerry but we created four goal chances in that game which we did not take and had we, who knows what might have happened.”

Consolidating their position as a top eight side is the least Sweeney hopes to take from 2018.

“You can’t afford to jump ahead but I would say that if we stay in Division One and make the ‘Super 8s’ that would be a good season.

“We can’t really afford to look past Mayo [in the Championship] because whoever loses that game will have four tough games going through the qualifiers to get that far.”

As for tomorrow’s test, Sweeney added: “Any team that can go down to Kerry, play most of the game with 14 men, score 3-14 and be leading when time is nearly up are serious opposition. “We are going to have to be at the top of our game to get anything,” he said. VERDICT: Donegal