Galway minors complete stunning resurrection by turning tables on Mayo

GALWAY 0-15                     

MAYO 0-9     

Kevin Egan at Hyde Park

WITH 12 minutes gone in last Friday night’s All-Ireland minor football final, Galway were marginally the happier side. Having already played a good chunk of the game with the breeze in their faces, Alan Glynn’s team was tied at 0-3 apiece with Mayo and while there had been missed goal chances at both ends of the ground, it felt like Kyle Gilmore’s one-on-one save to deny Niall Hurley was crucial in terms of denying the Connacht champions oxygen and belief.

With 14 minutes gone, the prognosis was even more positive, as a Galway attack that led to Éanna Monaghan’s point from play made it clear that the two previous meetings between these ancient Connacht rivals were not going to be relevant.

Tomás Farthing, who made his first start of this campaign and his first start since coming back from a lengthy injury absence in the Connacht final, sprinted forward and opened up the Mayo defence. He moved the ball wide to Ross Coen, who in turn played in Monaghan.

All year long, the fate of this team of Tribesmen was inextricably linked to how their joint captain and talisman from Claregalway fared, and Mayo undoubtedly had the young man’s measure in their previous meetings. This time Monaghan found a way to come from deep and identify a patch of space from which to kick his score, and the effortless way in which he simply pulled the breaks to dummy the Mayo defender and, to use the words of that generation, send him for chips, showed that he was tuned in and ready to play.

James Maheady kicked the next two points to flip the lead, but even in their periods of ascendency, which were at best, one ten-minute spell in each half, it was clear that Mayo were playing this game on Galway’s terms.

Sean Deane’s side were the top scoring team in this championship, but in the finest tradition of Mayo sides of every age, their strength was still largely based in their ability to shut down opponents with elite one-on-one defending. John McMonagle, Rio Mortimer and Colm McHale had been stellar throughout the county’s eight-game winning run, but this time around Galway’s key men were able to find a way to get involved in the game.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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