WHEN SLIGO LAST PLAYED GALWAY
LAST YEAR’S Connacht GAA Football Senior Championship final meeting of Sligo and Galway was the most recent championship meeting of these provincial rivals. On a wet day in May, this was one of the most one-sided encounters between the counties as Galway won by 14 points, 2-20 to 0-12, in front of an attendance of 11,867 at Hastings Insurance MacHale Park.
Sligo were 0-3 to 0-1 ahead after five minutes but that was as good as it got for Tony McEntee’s men, who reached the decider by defeating the provincial competition’s two non-Connacht entrants, London and New York. The beaten finalists trailed by eight points at half-time, 2-7 to 0-5, with Galway’s two first-half goals coming from Matthew Tierney, who would finish with a personal haul of 2-7. Sligo’s leading scorers on the day were Sean Carrabine (0-4), Niall Murphy (0-3) and Darragh Cummins (0-3).
Sligo achieved entry to the Sam Maguire Cup as a result of reaching the Connacht final and they were drawn in Group Three along with Dublin, Roscommon and Kildare. Sligo drew with Kildare at Markievicz Park but lost to the Rossies (1-21 to 1-11) and eventual champions Dublin (3-23 to 0-8). Galway lost to their arch rivals Mayo by a point in a preliminary quarter-final.
Daniel Lyons, Evan Lyons, Eddie McGuinness, Nathan Mullen, Brian Cox, Paul McNamara, Luke Towey, Cian Lally, Paul Kilcoyne (0-1), Keelan Cawley, Sean Carrabine (0-4, 2f), Finnian Cawley, Pat Spillane (0-1), Darragh Cummins (0-3), Niall Murphy (0-3, 1 ‘45’, 1f)
Subs used: Mikey Gordon, Gerard O’Kelly-Lynch, Patrick O’Connor, Mark Walsh, Alan Reilly