A weekend to forget

Date Published: {J}

Dara Bradley

The Galway senior hurling team’s wretched performance at Croke Park on Sunday capped a bleak weekend for Galway sport – the senior footballers crashed out of the Connacht Championship in dramatic fashion and the city’s three soccer teams, Galway United, Salthill Devon and Mervue United, were all beaten.

Galway sports fans answered the ‘call to arms’ issued last week by team manager John McIntyre and made up the majority of the 31, 376 crowd at GAA HQ but his charges didn’t give the faithful much to shout about as the Tribesmen were second best in every aspect against a Kilkenny outfit who claimed their 67th Leinster championship without breaking too much sweat.

The winning margin was seven points, 1-19 to 1-12, but the reality was it felt like a 17-point defeat such was the manner in which Galway caved in so easily. Galway’s defensive sextet was solid enough but from the midfield sector upwards the Tribesmen were totally cleaned out of it.

Galway’s centre-field was virtually non-existent as Kilkenny’s Michael Fennelly and Michael Rice made hay. The half-forwards were no better and were incapable of winning possession in the air or in tight exchanges. And the inside forwards, with the exception of Damien Hayes who tried his heart out, were peripheral figures and never looked threatening.

Tactics were questionable, too – the positioning of Joe Canning at centre-forward backfired, and persisting in pumping high ball into him, when he went to full-forward with two men marking him with Hayes dropping deeper, was incredibly naive.

Although they had played poorly in the first half Galway were still well in the game only trailing by 1-8 to 1-5 but after the break the lethargy continued and they hurled like a team without belief, without energy and without a game-plan – Kilkenny outscored Galway in the opening 22 minutes by 0-8 to 0-1 and the rest of the match was academic. Galway now have three weeks to regroup ahead of an All-Ireland quarter-final on July 25.

The Galway footballers haven’t that luxury and face Wexford at Pearse Stadium this Saturday (2pm) in the qualifiers following their one-point defeat to Sligo in the Connacht semi-final replay thriller at Markievicz Park on Saturday.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Sentinel.