Galway fall well short on day to forget for home team

Roscommon 0-13

Galway 1-5

AS a media scrum surrounded Galway football manager Kevin Walsh in the aftermath of his side’s dismal defeat to Roscommon, he found it difficult to account for the team playing so poorly in the FBD final at Tuam Stadium.

In fairness to Walsh, however, he did not allow himself to be drawn into the huge criticism throughout the ground of the referee who handed down a total of a dozen cards to Galway players alone – almost 20 in total.

The manager could have easily slammed the referee for some outrageous decisions against Galway, in particular, but instead he admitted: “Our skills in the first half were very poor.”

Walsh also bemoaned the lack of discipline within his side and described it as “not being the best on the day” as well as focussing on a plethora of injuries and the lack of Corofin and Spiddal players available to him.

Galway scored just four points in that 42 minute first half period of poor and ill-tempered football that resulted in countless stoppages and a melee in which the vast majority of both sides were involved.

Before the match began, the attendance of around 4,500 were informed that the three handpass rule had been abolished for this game, but that all of the other changes still applied. It was a strange move.

Then Galway went on to play some of the most negative football imaginable. Their full forward line was non-existent, there was no target man up front, they back-passed throughout the game and failed to take advantage of a plethora of scoring chances.

Galway supporters on leaving the venue comforted themselves in the belief that it is early in the year, they cannot be as bad again, they were missing a load of injured players and . . . not forgetting the performance of referee.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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