Galway camp left disappointed by careless mistakes

Date Published: 07-Jun-2012

STEPHEN GLENNON

GALWAY captain Fergal Moore has insisted “the win” was the primary objective of their clash with Westmeath but he conceded the Tribesmen were disappointed with certain aspects of their play, including the concession of four goals to the Division 2 side in the second half.

In the end, Galway ran out convincing 5-19 to 4-12 winners in their Leinster quarter-final fixture – played in front of 2,515 people – against the Lake County at Cusack Park, Mullingar last Sunday.

The ten point win was by no means their biggest victory over Westmeath in their five championship meetings to date, having won by 21 and 24 points in championship encounters in 1975 and 2006 respectively, but it was commanding nonetheless.

Indeed, with 10 minutes to go, Galway led 5-16 to 2-9 and the game was over as a contest. However, alarmingly, they were subsequently outscored 2-5 to 0-3 by Brian Hanley’s charges in the closing 10 minutes, a statistic that was of some concern to Moore.

“We were in control but then the pace went out of the game and we got lazy,” admitted the Galway captain. “We had lapses of concentration and, in fairness to Westmeath, they upped their game as well. They identified a few flaws in our game but it is good to have them identified in the first round because you can correct them early enough and hopefully we can change it around for the next round [against Offaly].

“So, we will work on those on Tuesday night but the main thing was to get the win and get off the board in the championship and move onto the next round. Again though, we were disappointed with those aspects of our game.”

Other than that, Moore was satisfied with the overall performance and this was a perspective also adopted by Galway coach Tom Helebert. “It was an important win today from the point of view of getting the show on the road,” said Helebert.

“There was a little bit of a legacy from last year’s game against Westmeath in terms of the concerns we might have had. However, the (Galway) players had a good attitude and did their job fairly well most of the time.

“Aside from the few careless mistakes we made in giving away the goals, on balance, we would be happy enough with the performance, particularly from the point of view of achieving our own targets in relation to the score and setting a certain tempo to the game and all that. So, we are reasonably happy.”

For more, read this week’s Galway City Tribune.