Brilliance from Kearns helps United to opening night win

There is no greater satisfaction for a goalkeeper than keeping a clean sheet, especially on the opening day of the season in a tough game away to one of your title rivals.

Conor Kearns enjoyed just that last Friday night in Cork with a man-of-the-match display that ensured Ed McCarthy’s goal was enough to seal a 1-0 win for Galway United, but he was as adept at batting away the praise of his performance after the game as he was the efforts of the City players during the 90 minutes or so of action.

“I was called upon and thankfully I was able to do a job, but I think a lot of credit has to go to the back four, there was countless numbers of blocks, headers, clearances that are just as important as saves in that game,” he says.

“In fairness to the lads, especially going down to 10 men, they defended incredibly well. You are looking at two lapses at set pieces which we won’t be happy with, we’ll look at that, but thankfully I was able to dig them out, but you look at games last season, when I didn’t have to make a save, so it works both ways.

“Just to call out one, Conor O’Keeffe made about four or five clearances and blocks in front of goal, so they are just as important as saves, and as a unit I think we can all be very proud of our performance,” he said after that 1-0 win over Cork City at Turners Cross last Friday..

Kearns is in his second season with United, having joined the Tribesmen in January of last year after spells with UCD and St Patrick’s Athletic, helping UCD to the First Division title in 2018.

He was obviously hoping to add another First Division winners’ medal by helping United to last year’s title, but a wretched start to the season which saw United win just two of their first nine games left them with too big a gap to make up on Shelbourne.

For more, read this week’s Galway City Tribune.

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