Big chance for footballers to start on winning note

Date Published: {J}

FRANK FARRAGHER

GALWAY footballers travel North into the heart of Patrick Kavanagh country for their opening league match of the 2011 campaign on Sunday (2.30) hoping that their pilgrimage to Inniskeen can yield them two critical league points.

And while Kavanagh’s connections with the GAA may be confined to the boots he helped cobble together with his show-making father, the village nestled in the rolling hills of East Monaghan, has a rich footballing tradition.

That’s the past though and when the footballers of Galway and Monaghan trot out onto Pairc Grattan shortly after two o clock on Sunday, the present will be very much on their minds – the side that loses this tie in a highly competitive Division One of the league, will be early favourites to slip through the relegation trapdoor.

Ambitions in both counties for the season ahead could best be described as modest with Monaghan looking to be in a state of greater distress than Galway, due to a spate of defections under the new regime of Eamon McEneaney, but as always the real talking is to be done on the field.

Tomás Ó Flatharta faces a no less onerous task in his first year in charge of Galway, after a disastrous championship campaign last year ending in a Connacht semi-final exit at the hands of Sligo before an ignominious qualifiers defeat to Wexford in Pearse Stadium.

Galway of course do have a lot of history and tradition behind them, as well as a fair packet of All-Ireland titles, but over recent years the county has struggled to be competitive in the heat of championship battle. There’s a lot of ground to be made and very few handy solutions.

At least Tomás Ó Flatharta had the good sense to start off with a very modest and humble wish list – his simple mantra being to improve a little with every match – but the league allows very little room for experimentation or error, if the competition is viewed as an end in itself.

Trials, some of them possible of doubtful virtue, and hard training sessions tend to characterise the early days of January for the modern day Gaelic footballer and it would take a fair pundit to predict the starting Galway fifteen for Sunday’s encounter.

Galway did have three January FBD league matches, chalking up wins against Sligo and Sligo IT, but slipping up ‘in the middle’ to a jaunty NUI Galway side. Whether Ó Flatharta was any the wiser after those three close encounters is debatable.

Definitely out of Sunday’s starting line-up are Michael Meehan and Padraic Joyce, a fair blow to any attack before a ball is kicked.

Indeed Meehan is likely to be out for most – if not all – of the league following the nasty ankle injury he suffered in last Summer’s championship replay against Sligo in Markievicz Park while Joyce is out with back and leg trouble, but should resume action over subsequent league ties.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.