Galway minor footballers’ agony

Mayo 3-7

Galway 1-12

SEVEN years have passed since Galway minor footballers last claimed a provincial title, a campaign that ended with Paul Conroy climbing the steps of the Hogan to collect the Tom Markham Cup, and of all the near misses and narrow defeats that have come in Connacht in  the intervening years, Saturday’s one-point defeat to Mayo at Tuam Stadium must surely hurt the most.

Six points up late in the first half and playing some superb football, Galway were firmly on track. In truth, they should have been completely out of sight. A lack of ruthlessness with their finishing combined with the concession of a soft penalty kept Mayo in the game before half-time and it all unraveled after the contentious sending-off of key midfielder Michael Daly with little over 20 minutes remaining.

This will be a difficult defeat to come to terms with for manager John Donnellan, his selectors Enda Daly, PJ Kelly and Seamus Burke, the extended backroom team of Alan Keane and Michael Donnellan, and the entire 30-man Galway panel. A huge effort went in since last winter but a season that held plenty of promise comes to an abrupt end with no backdoor or second chances available. This was an avoidable defeat and a shot at both the Connacht title and progress to the All-Ireland series have all slipped away in the most frustrating of circumstances.

There will be more than just a few regrets in the Galway camp this week, from how they failed to turn the screw during a totally dominant opening 25 minutes to allowing Mayo back into the match and on to the dismissal of Daly by referee Ray McBrien. That decision that changed the entire course of the match and dealt Galway a blow they could never recover from.

On a yellow card from late in the first half, the Mountbellew-Moylough midfielder received his second following what seemed an innocuous foul in the  shadows of the stand. The Leitrim referee appeared to be taking no action until his linesman intervened and a second yellow card was issued. All in all, it looked an extremely harsh call and in terms of determining the outcome, it was a decisive one.

The bottom line is that the reigning provincial and All-Ireland champions advance to a provincial decider against Roscommon at MacHale Park, Castlebar on July 13 in a curtain-raiser to the  senior final between Galway and Mayo. Roscommon and Mayo, in particular, have dominated Connacht since ’07 and Saturday’s defeat means Galway remain without a win against Mayo  since ’05 and their overall losing streak against the province’s two other heavyweights at the grade rises to seven matches.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.