Galway ladies stumble late on to old rivals

Mayo 2-8

Galway 1-10

FOURTEEN minutes of added time last Sunday saw this contest unravel for Galway as the remarkable Cora Staunton landed four late points to give the visitors victory in the National Ladies Football League at Tuam Stadium.

When Olivia Divilly sent over her third white flag on 54 minutes, the Tribeswomen led 1-10 to 2-4 but wouldn’t add to their tally. Roisin Leonard was then sin-binned for a challenge while Megan Heneghan saw a surprising red for a foul in injury time as Galway couldn’t penetrate the Mayo lines late on.

After their opening day win against Monaghan, Galway came into this game full of confidence even though Mayo had beaten Cork and Dublin. And within two minutes, the scoreboard was ticking nicely for Willie Ward’s charges. Louise and Nicola Ward, plus Deirdre Brennan, were involved in the opening move that saw Megan Glynn split the posts.

And when Roisin and Tracey Leonard combined to set up Patricia Gleeson straight after, Galway led by 0-2 to 0-0. The wind was in Galway’s favour but they struggled to make it count and their interval advantage was just 0-5 to 0-4 at half-time. While four wides were costly, the finicky whistle blowing of referee Niall McCormack wasn’t helping either side.

While the second period saw an increase in physicality, 28 frees in the opening 30 minutes wasn’t a fair reflection of the exchanges. That being said, both teams came close to early goals. Tracey Leonard set up Gleeson from the left on eight minutes only for the crossbar to rescue Mayo. While 60 seconds later, Sarah Rowe failed to raise a green flag thanks to the woodwork.

The game’s first hold-up occurred when Staunton fell into Fabienne Cooney. After four minutes, the resulting free was pointed by the Carnacon forward and she added two more by the 16th minute. With the game in stop-start mode, neither side troubled the umpires again until the 27th minute when Aileen Gilroy made it 0-4 to 0-2 to Mayo.

Galway needed scores and enjoyed a purple patch before the break. Edel Concannon won a free which Leonard converted; Concannon then kicked a fine effort from the left to equalise; before an advanced Shauna Hynes engineered a foul with Leonard obliging and Galway were ahead at half-time.

Full report in this week’s Connacht Tribune