CUTTING LOOSE
Galway’s struggles in front of goal are nothing new, but utilising Johnny Glynn could be a way of...
GALWAY, goes the wisdom of the week, needed a shock. Too much talk about them being unbeatable, reckon many. They’ve got a fright that could be the making of them.
But Galway’s difficulties in the drawn Leinster final were not a matter of attitude. Their touch was heavy, their tactics undone to a large extent by the planning of Kilkenny.
Goals remain an outstanding problem for their manager Micheál Donoghue.
Galway still don’t get enough of them.
They have scored two since scoring 5-18 against hapless Offaly on May 12. Their second outing was enormously impressive in the control they wielded over Kilkenny in Salthill, winning 1-22 to 2-11. Their goal came from a penalty by Joe Canning in the first half.
They scored 1-23 against Wexford, Conor Whelan scoring a goal after less than two minutes. That was on June 2. Galway’s domination of their roundrobin matches was obvious, but that level of play is commonly given most emphatic expression through goals.
The standard in this is set, as it is in every other facet of the game, by Brian Cody’s marvellous four-in-a-row sides between 2006 and 2009.
In 2006, they netted seven goals in five games during their Champion This ship-winning run. A year later, they struck eight in five. In 2008, the total was 11 from four fixtures, and 2009 it was eight again, this time in four games.
Those iterations of Kilkenny will be celebrated for a long time as the finest hurling teams the game has yet seen but their goal-scoring wasn’t otherworldly.
Tipperary scored 13 goals in their All-Ireland-winning season in 2010, accumulated over six matches as they tracked a path through the qualifiers.
Their tally was just one less in 2016, 12 goals in five matches. Last year, Galway won the All-Ireland with two goals, both scored in a Leinster quarter-final against Dublin. From then on in, they won through point-scoring.
They were exceptionally good at it, an economical squad well marshalled by Donoghue.
was reflected in their AllIreland final win against Waterford, when substitutes Niall Burke and Jason Flynn scored two points from play apiece to nudge their team to victory.
Good husbandry in converting opportunities to points is especially important for Galway because modesty in front of the opposition net is not balanced by meanness in protecting their own goal.
They conceded six goals last summer. Tipperary conceded five the year before, Kilkenny six in 2009 and just one in 2008, in what was the most awesome campaign by any side, in hurling or football, in living memory.
Galway were the champions who did enough. That isn’t to dismiss them with faint praise, either; their physical power, an excellent forward line, the free-taking of Joe Canning and the judicious calls in play made by Donoghue made them deserved winners of the 2017 season.
But goals make the way to victory much smoother.
They sicken even the most stubborn opponents; they provide a bountiful return and reward teams who dominate, as has become Galway’s way for much of the past 12 months.
They were not in complete control last Sunday, but Kilkenny’s nugget resistance would have been stressed by even one Galway goal.
The best chance of one came shortly after half-time when Conor Whelan larruped a shot at goal that was well saved by Kilkenny goalkeeper Eoin Murphy.
Other than that, there were a couple of first-time pulls that fitted most accurately into the Hail Mary category.
Recognition should be given to the Kilkenny defence, which was terrific, and their full-back line in particular.
But this is a limited side; they scored nine points from play, and were kept going by frees from TJ Reid. Galway goals would have obliged them to get even more than they managed out of de-cidedly finite attacking resources.
Galway couldn’t manage it, however.
Donoghue addressed their stuttering goal-scoring before the start of the championship.
‘We were just really fortunate to have a group that was talented and well able to take the point opportunities when they presented themselves,’ he said of last year’s champions.
‘There was no point last year where we said, “Keep tapping them over”. We are very conscious when we are up that side of the field to take the opportunities and take the scores but it is something that has been well documented.
‘We would obviously like to score a few more goals,’ he admitted.
‘It is a work-on for us. If the
opportunities present themselves we still have the players to go and get goals.
‘We came up against different systems last year, the players adapted quickly and knew they had to shoot from out the field. It is just down to the talent of the players that we have that we are well capable of taking scores from afar.’
Whelan and Conor Cooney have been in splendid form this summer complemented by Canning, Burke and Flynn, but Johnny Glynn could provide the most immediate route to more goals.
He did not fashion a chance when he came on in the second period against Kilkenny in Croke Park, but even in his brief time on the field he illustrated, again, his strength under a dropping ball. Played closer to goal, Glynn could cause mayhem, and it would check the ambitions of Kilkenny’s defenders were he to be placed at full forward from the start. Goals would not instantly follow, but Glynn could be a way of freeing access to a source of scores that could leave Galway untouchable this summer.