Archive News
Footballers’ lack of leaders is exposed again in Drogheda
Date Published: 27-Feb-2013
Louth 0-17
Galway 0-11
Dara Bradley in Drogheda
THE Galway senior footballers are in danger of earning the unwanted reputation of being a one-half – a first half – team.
Worryingly, and inexplicably, for the second Division Two National Football League clash in a row in 2013, the Tribesmen experienced a second half collapse.
Against Derry in the league opener at Pearse Stadium, Alan Mulholland’s charges conceded ten points in an alarming fade-out after the break but, at least, hung on for victory, thanks mostly to the magic of Michael Meehan, who scored 1-5.
Against Louth on Saturday in Drogheda, Galway conceded nine points after half time and were deservedly beaten by six after another sluggish, sub-standard second 35 minutes’ display.
If you add in patchy performances in the FBD League, where the good was mixed with the mediocre, Galway’s season so far has been characterised by inconsistency.
In fact, it’s a tad generous to say Galway were ‘good’ in the opening half against the Wee County because for the guts of it, the away team were in deep, deep trouble – 13 minutes in and Galway were 0-6 to 0-2 in arrears, and struggling to get a foothold.
That they dug deep and engineered themselves out of that hole to go in level at the break, and put themselves right back in contention, makes Galway’s second half no-show all the more frustrating.
It’s tempting to suggest the reason Galway are running out of steam during competition is because they’re knackered from going hell for leather in pre and early season training; and that that hard graft will bear fruit towards the end of the league and in the Summer. We’ll see.
The first touch of the likes of Seán Armstrong, for example, wasn’t close to what you’d expect from someone of his talent; and other experienced guys, in what was a relatively young team, made uncharacteristic howlers – there were many on the day but a couple of handling errors and wayward passes from Gary Sice and Niall Coleman spring to mind – suggesting Galway are not yet up to the pace this early in the year.
But there appeared to be deeper problems than a lack of sharpness. It was a second-half display devoid of leadership all over the park: When the tide began to turn in Louth’s favour, when Paddy Keenan, Brian White and substitutes Ciaran Byrne and Derek Maguire, began to turn the screw, Galway were crying out for on-field guidance, desperate for key players to step-up and influence the course of proceedings. It didn’t happen.
Galway lost their shape in the second-half, too. Another problem, which isn’t as fixable, is Galway lacked physicality – a bigger, more robust Louth outfit took full advantage of their superior size against the younger, slighter opponents. The other woes evident on Saturday, which were positional and of personnel, will be all too familiar to Galway football followers.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
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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