Archive News
Failure to defend set-pieces cost poor Galway Utd side once again
Date Published: {J}
Bray Wanderers 2
Galway United 1
Keith Kelly
Galway United manager Sean Connor slammed his side’s “disgraceful” defending which handed Bray Wanderers a two-goal lead inside ten minutes in the Carlisle Grounds on Friday night, and with it the three points that sees the Seagulls climb to second in the table.
As for United, they were staring at slipping to bottom of the table until Dundalk rallied from a goal down to win the Louth derby against Drogheda United, but that was of little consolation for a United side guilty of one of the worst 45 minutes of football from any team to pull on the maroon jersey in some time.
The United manager put the two Bray goals – both from corners on the left – down to a failure to defend set pieces and the abdication of individual responsibility by his players, but it is difficult to see how you can work on the training ground on dealing with such matters when you don’t even train as a unit.
“It was disgraceful defending, and we’ve kept the players in [the dressing room] after the game and spoken about it. It is individual responsibility, you should be able to pick up players and right now people are not doing that. I don’t know what to do about it apart from picking a different team,” Connor said after the game.
Granted, United did improve in the second half, and enjoyed long periods of possession, but without ever looking like they were going to get back into the game against a Bray side that always looked like they had another couple of gears to slip into had their grip on the match been in serious threat.
Once again Connor trotted out the line of the budget he has to work with, and while, as he said, “the facts are the facts”, it is no excuse for the paucity of performance from his side in the first half. If that performance is as good as his side can muster – and the evidence this season thus far would not suggest otherwise – then perhaps he would be better cobbling together a side exclusively made up of local players, or at least players who are available to train in
Galway with the rest of the squad.
Again, the budget line is the excuse for the likes of Bobby Ryan and Brian Cash training in Dublin and linking up with the squad for games, but that is looking more and more like a flawed set-up as, while that pair – and Shaun Maher and Steve Feeney – bring bags of experience to the side, the lack of unity in the squad is a major worry.
There certainly did not appear to be any leaders on the pitch on Friday night. We’re not talking about players having a cut at each other over mistakes, but the lack of communication between the United players must be addressed as the silence from the men in maroon was deafening on Friday night, whereas Gary Dempsey was a non-stop talker for the home side, offering advice, encouragement and the odd reprimand throughout the game.
For more, read this weeks’ Connacht Sentinel.
People’s living conditions less than 100 years ago were frightening. We have come a long way. We talk about water charges today, but back then the local District Councils were erecting pumps for local communities and the lovely town of Mountbellew, according to Council minutes, had open sewers,” says Galway County Council archivist Patria McWalter.
Patria believes we “need to take pride in our history, and we should take the same pride in our historical records as we do in our built heritage”. When you see the wealth of material in her care, this belief makes sense.
She is in charge of caring for the rich collection of administrative records owned by Galway County Council and says “these records are as much part of our history as the Rock of Cashel is. They document our lives and our ancestors’ lives. And nobody can plan for the future unless you learn from the past, what worked and what didn’t”.
Archivists and librarians are often unfairly regarded as being dry, academic types, but that’s certainly not true of Patria. Her enthusiasm is infectious as she turns the pages of several minute books from Galway’s Rural District Councils, all of them at least 100 years old.
Part of her role involved cataloguing all the records of the Councils – Ballinasloe, Clifden, Galway, Gort, Loughrea, Mountbellew, Portumna and Tuam. These records mostly consisted of minutes of various meetings.
When she was cataloguing them she realised their worth to local historians and researchers, so she decided to compile a guide to their content. The result is For the Record: The Archives of Galway’s Rural District Councils, which will be a valuable asset to anybody with an interest in history.
Many representatives on these Councils were local personalities and several were arrested during the political upheaval of the era, she explains.
And, ushering in a new era in history, women were allowed to sit on these Rural District Councils – at the time they were not allowed to sit on County Councils.
All of this information is included in Patria’s introductory essay to the attractively produced A4 size guide, which gives a glimpse into how these Rural Councils operated and the way political thinking changed in Ireland during a short 26-year period. In the early 1900s, these Councils supported Home Rule, but by 1920, they were calling for full independence and refusing to recognise the British administration.
“I love the tone,” says Patria of the minutes from meetings. “The language was very emotive.”
That was certainly true of the Gort Rural District Council. At a meeting in 1907, following riots in Dublin at the premiere of JM Synge’s play, The Playboy of the Western World the councillors’ response was vehement. They recorded their decision to “protest most emphatically against the libellous comedy, The Playboy of the Western World, that was belched forth during the past week in the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, under the fostering care of Lady Gregory and Mr Yeats. We congratulate the good people of Dublin in howling down the gross buffoonery and immoral suggestions that are scattered throughout this scandalous performance.
For more from the archives see this week’s Tribunes here
Date Published: 23-Jan-2013
SLIGO 0-9
GALWAY 1-4
FRANK FARRAGHER IN ENNISCRONE
GALWAY’S first serious examination of the 2013 season rather disturbingly ended with a rating well below the 40% pass mark at the idyllic, if rather Siberian, seaside setting of Enniscrone on Sunday last.
The defeat cost Galway a place in the FBD League Final against Leitrim and also put a fair dent on their confidence shield for the bigger tests that lie ahead in February.
There was no fluke element in this success by an understrength Sligo side and by the time Leitrim referee, Frank Flynn, sounded the final whistle, there wasn’t a perished soul in the crowd of about 500 who could question the justice of the outcome.
It is only pre-season and last Sunday’s blast of dry polar winds did remind everyone that this is far from summer football, but make no mistake about it, the match did lay down some very worrying markers for Galway following a couple of victories over below par third level college teams.
Galway did start the game quite positively, leading by four points at the end of a first quarter when they missed as much more, but when Sligo stepped up the tempo of the game in the 10 minutes before half-time, the maroon resistance crumbled with frightening rapidity.
Some of the statistics of the match make for grim perusal. Over the course of the hour, Galway only scored two points from play and they went through a 52 minute period of the match, without raising a white flag – admittedly a late rally did bring them close to a draw but that would have been very rough justice on Sligo.
Sligo were backable at 9/4 coming into this match, the odds being stretched with the ‘missing list’ on Kevin Walsh’s team sheet – Adrian Marren, Stephen Coen, Tony Taylor, Ross Donovan, David Kelly, David Maye, Johnny Davey and Eamon O’Hara, were all marked absent for a variety of reasons.
Walsh has his Sligo side well schooled in the high intensity, close quarters type of football, and the harder Galway tried to go through the short game channels, the more the home side bottled them up.
Galway badly needed to find some variety in their attacking strategy and maybe there is a lot to be said for the traditional Meath style of giving long, quick ball to a full forward line with a big target man on the edge of the square – given Paul Conroy’s prowess close to goal last season, maybe it is time to ‘settle’ on a few basics.
Defensively, Galway were reasonably solid with Gary Sice at centre back probably their best player – he was one of the few men in maroon to deliver decent long ball deep into the attacking zone – while Finian Hanley, Conor Costello and Gary O’Donnell also kept things tight.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
Date Published: 23-Jan-2013
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