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.