McEntee takes positives from team’s display

THIS WOULD have been one of the greatest results ever of Tony McEntee’s Sligo tenure.

A defeat of Galway last Saturday would have earned Sligo a second successive Connacht senior final appearance for the first time in the county’s history as well as ending Galway’s sequence of a making it to a provincial decider for the ninth consecutive campaign.

But Robert Finnerty’s stoppage-time goal crushed Sligo’s dreams of doing this or that.

There was no dismay from McEntee, with the Armagh man instead utterly proud of how his players performed in the Connacht GAA Senior Football Championship heat in the April sunshine.

“I’m not disappointed because we were superb from start to finish, it was a such a storming display. We were brilliant.

“I don’t think it is unfair for me to say we were the better team and that we deserved that victory,” he enthused after the 1-13 to 0-14 loss for his brave battlers.

“We made a mistake and we were penalised for it – unfortunately that can happen against these good teams – we were up against a strong Division One team.”

It was put to McEntee that this was his team’s finest game since he was appointed in November of 2020.

“This kind of performance has been building since the Offaly game. We had a steady performance against them, we were very good against Westmeath and we continued that against Leitrim.

“The players have come on no end in their understanding of the game – that comes with time spent on the pitch and in training.”

He continued: “This game was an opportunity to see if we could compete in the first instance and then to see if we could take our [scoring] opportunities against quality opposition.

“For most of the game the answer was yes we could – I hope that the team isn’t disappointed but that they realise we have quality players in Sligo and that we can progress in what will now be the Tailteann Cup and so something in it.”

Sligo lost to Galway by 14 points in last year’s Connacht final. Twelve months on the gap has closed according to McEntee,

“We have to believe, in theory, that Galway have a stronger panel with more depth – they have players on their bench who are as good as what are on the team.

“If we look at last year’s heavy defeat then we have come on miles as a team – that progress is in terms of our physicality, our mentality and also in our ability to play football.

“Our shooting, defending, passing and movement off the ball were all positive. I’m quite enthused about this performance and where we can go with this.”

Sligo did miss chances against Galway but McEntee wasn’t overly concerned about these wides.

McEntee reflection remained upbeat even when reminded that the only time Galway were ahead was when Robert Finnerty netted late on.

“Yes, we wanted to win the game and, yes, we thought we had given ourselves a good opportunity to do so – but look at where we were 12 months ago, we were in a Connacht final where we got annihilated by a very, very good Galway team. Look at how we played a year later.”

He added: “We’ll take a few days off because we have a few weeks until the start of the Tailteann Cup.

“Hopefully we’ll get some group games where we can consolidate the progress we’ve made in recent months.

“We want to improve minor aspects of our game and get ourselves into the knockout stages of the Tailteann Cup. We’ll take heart from this game [against Galway], knowing that we can compete against good teams and this should serve us well in the Tailteann Cup.”