Galway land U-21 Connacht title

Date Published: 06-Apr-2011

Galway 1-10

Roscommon 0-4

Dara Bradley at

Pearse Stadium

The perfect antidote to these tough times for Galway football followers. At last something to cheer about; at last a piece of silverware to polish.

Galway secured their first U-21 Connacht championship title since 2005 after a comprehensive victory over Roscommon before an official attendance of over 2,000 at Pearse Stadium.

The Tribesmen were full value for this nine-points thrashing of the reigning champions, Roscommon, who just failed to show up for what would have been the county’s first ever back-to-back title wins at this grade.

The maroon and white dominated and bullied the ‘Rossies’ at midfield; Galway’s backs were well on top all day; and their forwards showed several glimpses of brilliance at times to steamroll the hapless visitors’ defence.

The foundation for this sweet success was laid in the first-half when Galway, despite playing into a gale, carved out a four-point advantage, 0-6 to 0-2 at the turnaround. Alan Mulholland’s charges lost their way a bit early in the second half but Roscommon were so poor they just couldn’t capitalise and Galway never really looked like losing.

In injury time, substitute Adrian Murphy put the icing on the cake when he finished to the net an awesome movement that had its origins in Galway’s defence.

Galway were good but before they get carried away with themselves, heading into an All-Ireland semi-final in a couple of weeks, it’s worth noting just how truly awful the opposition were.

Roscommon’s midfield was cleaned out of it, particularly in the first half when they had wind advantage; and they made poor usage of what little possession they had – just two points from play, and four points in total, is not good enough at any level and the Galway defence even held them scoreless for a 27 minutes spell either side of half-time.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.