Galway turn on the style in second half to dismiss Rebels

GALWAY              0-23

CORK                     0-14

GALWAY’S four flagship inter-county teams remain on course for a possible clean sweep of All-Ireland titles after Anthony Cunningham’s intermediates got the ball rolling with a resounding nine-point victory over Munster champions Cork in a tame All-Ireland decider at the Gaelic Grounds on Saturday evening.

With Jeffrey Lynskey’s gutsy minors taking their All-Ireland semi-final to a replay the following afternoon, it was a hugely positive weekend for Galway hurling. Indeed, it underlined the depth in the Galway senior squad that their panellists – along with a plethora of U-21s – could claim a national title.

It was just reward for the toil those senior panellists have put in all year but, more importantly, the intermediate championship was the clearest indication yet that the county might just have finally struck the right balance in terms of their development programme.

With Conor Whelan already making the step up to senior during the championship – and others to possibly follow suit – it was what made the intermediate championship relevant from a Galway perspective. It also offered the U-21s, seven of whom started the final, three invaluable games.

The challenge now will be to maintain this structure and to continue to embrace the manner in which it was effectively used in 2015. As a result of this win, those who played last weekend will be ineligible in 2016 to field at this grade so the opportunity will be there to develop another crop of players.

From this one, there were several who impressed. It was a flip of a coin between midfielder Dean Higgins (0-3) and Daniel Nevin (0-5) as to who deserved the Man of the Match accolade while Kevin McHugo, Eanna Burke (first half), Éamon Brannigan and Shane Moloney (second half) – all of whom tallied two points apiece – also had their moments. Centre-forward Tadgh Haran was another busy bee.

In defence, the half-back line of Paul Flaherty and St. Thomas’ duo Darragh Burke and Shane Cooney were hugely competitive but, as a whole, the Galway rearguard was greatly aided by the fact that Cork played centre-forward Michael Collins as a sweeper, so allowing Adrian Tuohy a free role. It was bread and butter to the Beagh man.

At any rate, this was a game that you felt Galway always had another gear in them. Cork, who had won this competition last year and were fielding a whole new set of players in 2015, were honest in their endeavours but were extremely limited in the creativity department.

In this respect, Galway were guilty of not putting the Leesiders away far sooner than they did. By the eighth minute, the victors had led by six points to two, with Nevin (3), Eanna Burke (2) and Higgins punching holes in the Cork defence and hitting some wristy points.

Full report in this week’s Connacht Tribune