Archive News
Galway’s first-half goals prove crucial in first league test
Date Published: 27-Feb-2013
Galway 3-11
Kilkenny 0-17
STEPHEN GLENNON AT PEARSE STADIUM
THREE first half goals – all of which were set-up by the classy Joe Canning – laid the foundation for an opening day win over reigning champions Kilkenny in this entertaining first round National League fixture at Pearse Stadium on Sunday.
In many respects, most of the intensity to be found in this clash between last year’s two All-Ireland finalists was conjured up in a lively opening period and this was much appreciated by the vocal 9,000 plus hurling enthusiasts who turned up at the City venue.
After the frantic – and, often, nervous – early exchanges, Galway exploded to life in a 90 second spell when Mullagh’s Davy Glennon and Craughwell’s Niall Healy showed brilliant opportunism to pounce for the opening two goals.
On 14 minutes, a probing Canning delivery eluded tussling duo Jonathan Glynn and JJ Delaney and when the ball shot out the back, Glennon was onto it with lightning speed to pull first time to the Kilkenny net. It was clinical from Glennon.
While the Cats were licking themselves down, the Tribesmen’s caught them cold again shortly after; this time, Canning’s decisive ball finding Healy, who, swivelling neatly off his marker, cut inside and dispatched a pin-point effort beyond the hapless Eoin Murphy.
Those two goals put Galway 2-3 to 0-3 to the good and Anthony Cunningham, Mattie Kenny and Tom Helebert could not have asked for a better start from their charges. In many ways, the two majors underlined the mercurial side of Galway’s play, in that the team was having serious problems with their distribution in the early stages but, out of that, the two goals came from two excellent deliveries.
That said, the third Canning delivery was the crème de la crème. Under pressure touching the right sideline, the Portumna man spotted his club-mate Damien Hayes out of the corner of his eye and with unerring accuracy Canning executed a sublime cross field ball to find him.
It was then Hayes turn to work a little magic . . . taking the ball down so his angle would not be as acute, slipping seamlessly beyond the legendary Tommy Walsh, cutting inside the imposing Jackie Tyrrell and hammering home an unstoppable effort at the near post. You couldn’t replay that passage of play enough!
In any event, that 32nd minute effort came at an absolutely crucial time for Galway – given Kilkenny had struck over five points in a row through Richie Power (free and 65), Tommy Walsh, Richie Hogan (free) and Lester Ryan to cut the deficit to just one.
In addition, Galway were finding it difficult to hit the target from play from further out the field, underlined by the fact that they only hit one point from play – through Gort midfielder Aidan Harte in the third minute – in the opening half.
The Tribesmen would not score a point again until the 46th minute when Jonathan Glynn and substitute Tadgh Haran combined to set up Hayes for the well-worked score. The only consolation was that Kilkenny, despite beginning to impose themselves in the middle third, were only able to muster up a single point of their own through a Hogan free in the opening 11 minutes of the second half.
Despite shipping those three first half goal goals, there were times when Kilkenny were the better side but, uncharacteristically, their accuracy up front let them down, particularly in the second period. In this time, they shot ten wides to Galway’s three, with Hogan the biggest culprit.
Early in the second period, the Danesfort sharpshooter had two frees in front of the posts but, inexplicably, he struck his efforts left and right of the target. To some extent, this was the turning point of the contest.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
People’s living conditions less than 100 years ago were frightening. We have come a long way. We talk about water charges today, but back then the local District Councils were erecting pumps for local communities and the lovely town of Mountbellew, according to Council minutes, had open sewers,” says Galway County Council archivist Patria McWalter.
Patria believes we “need to take pride in our history, and we should take the same pride in our historical records as we do in our built heritage”. When you see the wealth of material in her care, this belief makes sense.
She is in charge of caring for the rich collection of administrative records owned by Galway County Council and says “these records are as much part of our history as the Rock of Cashel is. They document our lives and our ancestors’ lives. And nobody can plan for the future unless you learn from the past, what worked and what didn’t”.
Archivists and librarians are often unfairly regarded as being dry, academic types, but that’s certainly not true of Patria. Her enthusiasm is infectious as she turns the pages of several minute books from Galway’s Rural District Councils, all of them at least 100 years old.
Part of her role involved cataloguing all the records of the Councils – Ballinasloe, Clifden, Galway, Gort, Loughrea, Mountbellew, Portumna and Tuam. These records mostly consisted of minutes of various meetings.
When she was cataloguing them she realised their worth to local historians and researchers, so she decided to compile a guide to their content. The result is For the Record: The Archives of Galway’s Rural District Councils, which will be a valuable asset to anybody with an interest in history.
Many representatives on these Councils were local personalities and several were arrested during the political upheaval of the era, she explains.
And, ushering in a new era in history, women were allowed to sit on these Rural District Councils – at the time they were not allowed to sit on County Councils.
All of this information is included in Patria’s introductory essay to the attractively produced A4 size guide, which gives a glimpse into how these Rural Councils operated and the way political thinking changed in Ireland during a short 26-year period. In the early 1900s, these Councils supported Home Rule, but by 1920, they were calling for full independence and refusing to recognise the British administration.
“I love the tone,” says Patria of the minutes from meetings. “The language was very emotive.”
That was certainly true of the Gort Rural District Council. At a meeting in 1907, following riots in Dublin at the premiere of JM Synge’s play, The Playboy of the Western World the councillors’ response was vehement. They recorded their decision to “protest most emphatically against the libellous comedy, The Playboy of the Western World, that was belched forth during the past week in the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, under the fostering care of Lady Gregory and Mr Yeats. We congratulate the good people of Dublin in howling down the gross buffoonery and immoral suggestions that are scattered throughout this scandalous performance.
For more from the archives see this week’s Tribunes here
Date Published: 23-Jan-2013
SLIGO 0-9
GALWAY 1-4
FRANK FARRAGHER IN ENNISCRONE
GALWAY’S first serious examination of the 2013 season rather disturbingly ended with a rating well below the 40% pass mark at the idyllic, if rather Siberian, seaside setting of Enniscrone on Sunday last.
The defeat cost Galway a place in the FBD League Final against Leitrim and also put a fair dent on their confidence shield for the bigger tests that lie ahead in February.
There was no fluke element in this success by an understrength Sligo side and by the time Leitrim referee, Frank Flynn, sounded the final whistle, there wasn’t a perished soul in the crowd of about 500 who could question the justice of the outcome.
It is only pre-season and last Sunday’s blast of dry polar winds did remind everyone that this is far from summer football, but make no mistake about it, the match did lay down some very worrying markers for Galway following a couple of victories over below par third level college teams.
Galway did start the game quite positively, leading by four points at the end of a first quarter when they missed as much more, but when Sligo stepped up the tempo of the game in the 10 minutes before half-time, the maroon resistance crumbled with frightening rapidity.
Some of the statistics of the match make for grim perusal. Over the course of the hour, Galway only scored two points from play and they went through a 52 minute period of the match, without raising a white flag – admittedly a late rally did bring them close to a draw but that would have been very rough justice on Sligo.
Sligo were backable at 9/4 coming into this match, the odds being stretched with the ‘missing list’ on Kevin Walsh’s team sheet – Adrian Marren, Stephen Coen, Tony Taylor, Ross Donovan, David Kelly, David Maye, Johnny Davey and Eamon O’Hara, were all marked absent for a variety of reasons.
Walsh has his Sligo side well schooled in the high intensity, close quarters type of football, and the harder Galway tried to go through the short game channels, the more the home side bottled them up.
Galway badly needed to find some variety in their attacking strategy and maybe there is a lot to be said for the traditional Meath style of giving long, quick ball to a full forward line with a big target man on the edge of the square – given Paul Conroy’s prowess close to goal last season, maybe it is time to ‘settle’ on a few basics.
Defensively, Galway were reasonably solid with Gary Sice at centre back probably their best player – he was one of the few men in maroon to deliver decent long ball deep into the attacking zone – while Finian Hanley, Conor Costello and Gary O’Donnell also kept things tight.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
Date Published: 23-Jan-2013
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