Dark days on the horizon as footballers crumble in Laois

Date Published: 18-Mar-2013

Laois 1-15

Galway 0-10

FRANCIS FARRAGHER

No ‘ifs’ or ‘buts’, no excuses and to put it quite bluntly no way of dressing up a disturbingly poor Galway performance in this fifth series game of the National Football League at Portlaoise on Saturday evening last.

These are worrying times for the county’s football fraternity, and yes we’ve had these valley periods before, but under the lights of O’Moore Park on the eve of St Patrick’s Day, Galway just weren’t competitive for long stretches of this game.

Laois did make an explosive start to this match when Gary Walsh hammered a 14-metre shot to the back of Manus Breathnach’s net after good work by Colm Begley, a score that sent Galway chasing the game from the early moments . . . alas, it was to prove to be a hopeless aspiration.

Galway are in trouble right down through the spine of the team, and now with five matches gone in the league and just five points under their belts, the short term goal is to try and stay in Division 2, but there is a bigger picture to look at also and the side is struggling under the headings of ‘confidence’, ‘purpose’ and ‘morale’.

There were a couple of times in the first half when Galway did come within a goal of Laois, but right through the match Justin McNulty’s side looked faster, fitter and stronger – for long periods they just played the game at a different pace to the losers.

Laois might have started the evening on three league points – two behind Galway – but they are a decent enough outfit with a solid core of quality players and in Ross Munnelly they have a forward of genuine class.

Munnelly landed four points from play and was a constant thorn in the Galway defence, but the reality throughout the first-half was that Laois held the edge in most of the 50-50 battles from square to square, in front of the home crowd of about 2,000.

Laois led at half-time by 1-7 to 0-6 with Munnelly, MJ Tierney, Gary Walsh and Padraig Clancy picking off the points while Galway replied with scores from Michael Martin (3, two of them frees), Paul Conroy, Gary Sice and Niall Coleman.

Galway were quite fortunate to be only four behind at the break with Laois missing the target five times from very scoreable positions – when referee Conor Lane sounded the interval whistle, there was very little to indicate that the game would change direction in the second half.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Sentinel.