Galway footballers advance after low key affair

GALWAY 1-13

LEITRIM 0-8

MAYBE the less said about this one the better as Galway, with neither fuss nor fire, waddled their way into a Connacht semi-final showdown against Mayo in mid-June, following the most modest of successes at Páirc Seán MacDiarmada on Sunday.

To say that this game never ignited is a fairly charitable analysis of what went on and the big question most observers of the game in the province will be asking this week is, whether or not there is an explosives cache still there in the Galway armoury for the battle of Salthill in just over three weeks time.

This was a subdued and tame affair at Carrick’ witnessed by a smaller than expected crowd of just under 5,500, with a strong negative reaction to the pricing regime of €25 for the stand and €20 for the terrace. Was it worth that? – not on your life.

With the Leitrim crowd not turning out in great numbers – and the ones that did, not really believing in the cause – the sense of any shock result, or even a really competitive game, never existed.

When Leitrim led by 0-2 to 0-1 after four minutes, and one home wag remarked in a jaundiced vein that ‘he never expected anything else other than an early double scores lead’ for his side, there and then, the good times ended for Shane Ward’s charges.

There was an expectation from the travelling fans that their team would ‘open up’ after the early exchanges and destroy the Leitrim challenge, but this never happened – and never looked like happening either – as Galway went through the motions with heavy steps.

Leitrim did have a few goal chances – early in the game and shortly after half-time – when powerful young centre forward Donal Wrynn got into a couple of good positions, but couldn’t hit the target.

However it would be a distortion of the facts to suggest that Leitrim ever looked like making a game of this, as at the other end, Danny Cummins had an early goal disallowed for a square ball, while the same player, and sub Patrick Sweeney, could have had goals rather than points from close range late second half flicks.

All through, Leitrim tended to pull back a couple of half forwards to minimise the space for the fast moving Galway attackers while the home side’s kick-outs were always kept away from Fiontán Ó Curraoin: sensible enough kind of stuff from Shane Ward but that plan needed punch at the other end of the pitch and it just wasn’t there.