Sports
Galway hit new high in toppling Tipperary in thriller
Galway 0-26
Tipperary 3-16
THERE has never been a better Galway performance in a high stakes match at Croke Park than what we were privileged to witness in an epic All-Ireland semi-final last Sunday.
The bottom line is that heroic Galway dug out a result in a titanic collision that they had enough reasons to lose, not least being hit by three Seamus Callanan goals which normally would have sucked the heart out of the Tribesmen.
Galway may not have a tradition of winning big games which go down to the wire, but they stood up to every challenge which came their way against Tipperary with a savage work ethic being backed up by a wonderful exhibition of top quality shooting.
Anthony Cunningham’s charges also held their nerve and composure in a pulsating finale which saw substitute Shane Moloney emerge as an unlikely matchwinner with his 73rd minute point, a score cheered to the echoes by the huge Galway attendance in the crowd of 58,495.
For high drama and end to end action, GAA headquarters was the place to be last Sunday. Burdened with the expectation of igniting a mundane championship which had been tactically strangled by the prevalence of the sweeper system, Galway and Tipperary went at it hammer and tongs in a thrilling struggle which proved a ringing endorsement of hurling orthodoxy.
So much happened, and so quickly, it’s almost impossible to do justice to a game which will stand proudly alongside the great championship encounters down through the years, especially a breathtaking second-half when the edge constantly appeared to be swinging one team’s way only to almost immediately go back to the other.
No wonder supporters of both teams were breathless afterwards. It was hard to keep up with the action as there were so many talking points in a semi-final which saw Galway make a mockery of the age-old cliché that goals win matches. They conceded three, scored none themselves and, yet, somehow were the ones left standing.
Full report in this week’s Connacht Tribune