Galway’s wake up call

STEPHEN GLENNON

GALWAY coach Tom Helebert has admitted the Tribesmen have plenty of food for thought after barely escaping with their Leinster championship credentials intact following a hard-fought victory over minnows Laois in their Leinster semi-final last Sunday.

Played in front of an official attendance of 5,387 at O’Moore Park, Galway had to overturn a half-time deficit and subsequently respond to a 57th minute Laois goal – which secured the Midlanders a 1-10 to 0-12 lead – before finally finding their stride in the closing minutes of an absorbing tie.

Helebert said, though, these David v Goliath games are never comfortable – for either party! “These are never comfortable games because there is no right answer to the outcome,” said Helebert afterwards. “If you win by a mile, it is meant to be and if you get beaten or are sluggish or are seen as careless, there are obviously questions marks then.

“From our point of view, our focus was performance – it is always about focusing on our own performance. We have a number of things after today that we know we have to tidy up on to be better for a Leinster final against Dublin or Kilkenny, but those ‘work-ons’ are continual. So, that doesn’t change.”

Despite the 2-17 to 1-13 result, this was far from a fluent Galway display. Helebert conceded as much, noting the Tribesmen really did struggle with Laois’ blanket defence. “In the first half, Laois, even playing with the wind, set up with a lot of bodies behind the ball and it just made it very difficult to open it up and get possession.

“We hit a lot of ball down the flanks and they had bodies back and they swamped any space with hit. In saying that, they made it a very physical game as well. They were very hard in the tackle and we had to work very hard for our share of possession.”

Consequently, a wind-assisted Laois led 0-8 to 0-7 at the interval but it was the manner in which the home side defended and counter-attacked that had the partisan crowd on their feet as the teams headed down the tunnel. “At the back, we did okay but up front we needed to do more to be creative against a blanket defence,” assessed the Galway coach.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Sentinel.