Galway forced to pull out all the stops in toppling Clare

Galway 1-24

Clare 1-22

GALWAY minor hurlers were given quite the scare by a gritty Clare outfit in Portlaoise on Saturday. Three points down with 14 minutes of this enjoyable All-Ireland quarter-final round-robin fixture remaining, the young Tribesmen had to dig deep to book their place in this weekend’s semi-finals.

While Galway, having defeated Kilkenny the previous week, enter this Sunday’s All-Ireland semi-final against Wexford at Croke Park unbeaten, they will be the first to recognise they will have to improve in performance by another percentage if they are to overcome the Leinster champions.

There were times against Clare when Galway were simply awesome in their pace, movement and stickwork. However, there were also periods when they afforded Clare too much time and space on the ball and, inevitably, they paid the price by conceding 1-22.

One area that Clare impressed in throughout the afternoon was on their own puckout. Working it short time and again, they had the confidence to play the ball through the lines before looking to pick out their dangerman inside, Shane Meehan. The Banner teenager was exceptional.

The Galway management did endeavour to get their charges to push up on the Clare restarts in the second period — to force the Munster side to go long — but, as can often happen with young players, they struggled to adapt to the change of game-plan, from zonal to a high press.

Indeed, even when Clare were reduced to 14 following the sending off of their corner back Storm Devanney on 51 minutes, the Galway players were still unable to put the squeeze on Clare’s puckout. It left Fergal Lynch’s charges in the game right up until the final whistle.

In all, Clare goalkeeper successfully delivered 20 of his 34 puckouts to team-mates numbered from two to seven. Only five were secured by their midfielders or forwards; the rest were gobbled up by Galway when Clare went long. If Hanley’s young men take nothing else from this game — or, indeed, their time at this grade — it must be to learn to adapt to what’s in front of them.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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