Galway refuse to take a step back
18 cards, three sent off, as Mayo crack under pressure
IN TERMS of fly-onthe-wall GAA documentaries, Pat Comer’s A Year ’Til Sunday provided a fascinating insight into an All-Ireland-winning team.
The year was 1998, the subject the Galway footballers. One of the most arresting scenes came when Mayo native turned Galway messiah John O’Mahony brandished a newspaper article in front of the players that dared to call his charges ‘Fancy Dans’.
The clear implication was that Galway had plenty of nice footballers but lacked the stomach for some of Gaelic football’s more rudimentary features.
Well, at Salthill yesterday, Galway rolled up their sleeves and went to battle with Mayo, first winning the match and then winning the war when their old enemy’s discipline broke down in an unseemly denouement.
By the time over eight minutes of added time had concluded, 18 cards had been handed out, AllIreland finalists Mayo losing Cillian O’Connor to a straight red for a forearm hit on corner-back Eoghan Kerin and then younger brother Diarmuid walking for a rash high challenge on the same player a minute later.
Just prior to that, Galway had lost midfielder Paul Conroy on a second yellow, coming only moments after the first main flashpoint saw an off-the-ball tangle between Aidan O’Shea and Sean Ó Ceallaigh spiral out of control.
The sight of Mayo selector and maor foirne Tony McEntee getting involved in the middle of it means that Mayo’s disciplinary problems might yet have an added twist.
That’s six red cards in the last two meetings when last month’s FBD League meeting is factored in, as Galway somehow squeezed home by a point despite finishing with just 12 players.
When Galway’s last two Connacht championship meetings are factored in, it makes the Kevin Walsh-Stephen Rochford head-to-head 4-0, not that Walsh wanted to personalise it in that manner afterwards.
‘It’s not about me or Stephen Rochford, it’s about us getting the very best out of our own players and blend in the young fellas, do as best as we can. No better place than Division 1 to do that.
‘When you’ve six points on the board out of six it’s very, very pleasing. It takes a bit of pressure off. The goals don’t change. We want to be competitive, want to learn. We just have to get the lads to be competitive and consistent.’
Maybe it was the stinging fallout from last year’s tame All-Ireland quarter-final defeat by Kerry at Croke Park that left the Galway manager in somewhat spiky form afterwards, despite laying down a marker ahead of a Championship rematch against Mayo at Castlebar on May 13.
‘We’ve made headlines, maybe by some one or two with other agendas out there that like to pick on the one or two bad games.
‘I think we had a very consistent League last year as well, something like 11 out of 14 points in Division 2, which is a tough place to be.
‘Maybe in Galway we’re looking at the old tradition of having to win every game.’
Rochford made no bones about how his team failed to match Galway’s intensity throughout, Barry McHugh’s 18th-minute goal giving the hosts a four-point cushion and a dominant position they maintained until the finish.
‘Visibly, Galway were more up for it,’ admitted Rochford, who departed his vantage point from just outside the press area not long after that score which summed up Mayo’s day.
Jason Gibbons actually rose highest from a Galway kick-out and put gloves on the ball only to let it slip from his grasp.
Galway hoovered up the break and hit Barry McHugh inside, Ger Cafferkey isolated and losing his footing as the Galway man turned and headed for goal before cracking a top-drawer finish past All-Star goalkeeper David Clarke.
Galway’s set-up effectively involved playing with one in the full-forward line — Shane Walsh, Barry McHugh and Damien Comer rotating in and out — and one in the half-forward line.
The 13-man defence does not make for pretty football, especially with Mayo opting to go lat-
erally and run the ball through traffic time after time, but that’s three Division 1 games and Galway have not conceded a goal.
Damien Comer was a rampaging presence, clipping two early points and walking off with the TG4 man-of-the-match award. Shane Walsh, too, cut a swathe through the defence on occasion and after turning around 1-4 to 0-5 ahead, Eamon Branigan took up the slack up front, hitting three fine points from play.
Mayo’s inability to thread a way through the Galway defence meant that it took 20 minutes for the tireless Patrick Durcan to clip his team’s first point from play and even by the final whistle, Diarmuid O’Connor was the only forward to score from play.
With plenty of big names marked absent, Mayo looked heavy-legged and flat as the game wore on, Paul Conroy stepping up for Galway to hit two points as they surged 1-12 to 0-9 ahead by the 66th minute.
That’s when the first big flashpoint occurred, Aidan O’Shea at one stage being dragged on his back on the ground by Conroy, who was one of three Galway players booked.
The game then turned nasty, with the same player walking on a second yellow before Mayo lost the O’Connor brothers. The question now is whether there will be any further punishment when the video is reviewed.
Whatever happens on May 13, Galway have long since shed their ‘Fancy Dans’ tag.
GALWAY: R Lavelle; D Kyne, SA Ó Ceallaigh, E Kerin; C Sweeney, G Bradshaw (J Duane 78), S Kelly (G O’Donnell 77); J Heaney, P Conroy, P Cooke (T Flynn 60); P Sweeney (S Armstrong h-t), E Branigan; B McHugh (A Varley 72), S Walsh, D Comer (C D’Arcy 78). Scorers: B McHugh 1-3 (2fs), E Branigan 0-3, S Walsh (1f), D Comer, P Conroy 0-2, J Heaney 0-1.
MAYO: D Clarke; C Crowe (G McDonagh 39-41), G Cafferkey (D Newcombe 40-53), E O’Donoghue; C Boyle (J Stretton 63), M Hall, P Durcan (S Nally 78); J Gibbons (G McDonagh 61), S Coen; K McLoughlin (F Bolan 59), A O’Shea, D O’Connor; C O’Connor, J Doherty, C Loftus (A Gallagher 57).
Scorers: C O’Connor 0-5 (5f), K McLoughlin 0-1 (f), J Doherty (1f), D O’Connor, P Durcan, C Boyle, E O’Donoghue 0-1.
Referee: A Nolan (Wicklow).