Clinical Galway U21s show Kildare where the posts are in Tullamore

Galway 2-10
Kildare 2-5

Dara Bradley in Tullamore

THE writing was on the wall for Kildare early enough. It was only 30 seconds into the second half of the Cadbury’s All-Ireland U21 semi-final, and the raging hot favourites started where they’d left off in the first half – they hit another wide, this time from the boot of midfielder Thomas Moolick.

The disease had been diagnosed long before they’d reached the sanctuary of the midway dressing room, but Kildare had no cure for wayward shooting and damn awful shot-selection.

True, Kildare cut the deficit to two soon after that, and there was some concern when Galway lost two defenders to injury, Daithi Burke and David Cunnane, halfway through the second half, but really the shooting of Kieran McGeeney’s men was so haphazard they never got any scoring momentum going to put pressure on the scoreboard.

The Lilywhites added eight more wides in the remainder of the half, and when added to their ten wides in the first half, brought their total tally to 19 for the hour, a wide every three minutes on average.

It was calamitous; and had they been given 19 more shots at the posts we’d venture Kildare still wouldn’t have converted enough of them to win. Indeed, the two teams could still be playing today at O’Connor Park and Kildare wouldn’t have won it such was their shooting ineptitude, which was, in fairness, partly due to Galway’s mostly sturdy and dependable defence.

Galway’s attack wasn’t near as wasteful, registering just five wides, and one of them, a free from Shane Walsh that was signalled wide, actually looked like a score but thankfully it wasn’t significant.

The Kildare lads were as wasteful as drunken sailors on shore leave whereas Galway showed thriftiness in the forwards and an economical use of possession when within scoring range that would have impressed even the country’s miserly paymasters, the Troika.

In Shane Walsh (19) the county has unearthed a real gem, who scored more (six) than Kildare’s total points tally. Fleet footed, his class scoring abilities essentially was the difference between the teams, as the Kilkerrin/Clonberne teenager with his lightning fast pace tormented Kildare whenever he touched the ball.

Centre-forward Seán Moran, the official man of the match, is another natural talent that caused a buzz every time he got on the ball, and he took the game to Kildare from the 40. The likes of Ian Burke, a constant threat, lively Cathal Mulryan and Adrian Varley, though he didn’t score was involved time and again in Galway attacks, had too much footballing ability up front compared with their counterparts.

When a wide is registered, there’s a tendency to blame the kicker rather than the defender that stuck a shoulder in before the trigger was pulled; or the defenders who crowded round to tighten the shooting angle; or the defender who put pressure on and had enough of a presence to force the forward into rushing the shot.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.