Galway captain Conroy regrets not taking their chances against Mayo

GALWAY senior football captain Paul Conroy travelled to McHale Park on Sunday to win. Not many gave the visitors hope of achieving that aim.

But Conroy was quietly confident. If he wasn’t, there wouldn’t be much point in turning up, now would there?  Fans crossed the border more in hope; the St James’ clubman and his team-mates carried an expectation.

In the tunnel afterwards, naturally, Conroy was cut-up at losing again to arch rivals Mayo on Connacht final day at Castlebar.

His side’s biggest regret in the 3-14 to 0-16 defeat? Not finishing several goal chances, and not starting the first half the way they did the second half, with an unshackled confidence.

“I’m just very disappointed. It’s just a very disappointed dressing room in there. I don’t know. I thought maybe we didn’t take a couple of chances and that cost us dearly,” said Conroy.

“We thought we were in a good state coming down here. We felt we had no pressure on us, we were underdogs and we just said we’d give it a go and, I think we did that today, but we gave away a few cheap goals. That could be the game summed up there – they took their chances and we didn’t. Every time we seemed to be coming back at them they went up the other end and got a goal. You know, we’re going to have to tighten up in that regard.

“I think we started okay but there was a middle period through the first half where we struggled with the breaks. During that time we had chances to pop over one or two points to keep us in touch but we missed those chances and that cost us dearly. They were very physical, they are seasoned and they have been in the top two or three in the country in the last number of years. We’ve a bit to go to catch up with them but I think we’re going in the right direction.”

At times in that opening half, the game passed Galway by, as they had difficulty in getting hold of possession. Conroy, who led by example and was Galway’s top performer, finishing the day with four points from play, felt the complexion of the game could have been different if his side ‘had a go’ at Mayo from the off; and if they’d found the net.

“At half-time we just said: ‘Just give it a go’. And we did that. It’s a pity we weren’t like that from the throw-in. When we ran at them we troubled them and it’s just a pity we didn’t get a goal during that period after half-time. Shane Walsh hit the crossbar – that would have been a massive score for us. I’d another chance that just went over and we had the penalty saved as well. There were a couple of bad wides as well, and we’ll have to work on that stuff. We don’t have too much time now, it’s great we’re out again in two weeks against Tipperary.”

The city-man has identified a number of areas where Galway needs to improve on as it strives to reach the last eight with a win over in the qualifiers over Tipperary, who they defeated last year in the back-door.

“I think we’ve got to work on not letting runners through our defence – they got three goals today and it was from a runner and, yeah, exactly they could have had a couple more. Get more clinical upf ront – that’s definitely another area where we’ve to work on.

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