Galway win again but fail to impress against Offaly

Galway 2-17

Offaly 3-10

JOHN FALLON AT PEARSE STADIUM

IT’S often seen as a positive that a team wins a game with a bit to spare but still grumbles that they have plenty of room for improvement. However, there was an air of gloom at Pearse Stadium on Sunday as Galway notched their expected fourth win of the Allianz League in an unconvincing manner.

Galway manager Padraic Joyce, who kept his squad in the dressing room for a lengthy debrief afterwards, said they need big improvements if they are to keep up their promotion drive and make an immediate return to the top flight.

And that’s before they start plotting the downfall of Mayo in the Connacht championship in a game that’s quickly down the tracks in just over six weeks now.

Galway shot 2-16 from play and never trailed in the rare benign conditions at the Salthill venue as they maintained their 100% start, but even Offaly manager John Maughan quipped that he might have done his native Mayo a favour by showing how to slice open Galway.

The experienced Maughan reckons he might have done his native county Mayo a favour ahead of that Connacht championship date on April 24 as they exploited some weaknesses in the Galway defence.

“I think James Horan the Mayo manager might have been pleased to see us expose Galway in that sense. Maybe their heads weren’t quite focused on today’s game and I don’t think that they’d be disrespectful to Offaly, but I don’t think they were as tuned as they appeared last Saturday night down in Cork.

“They were very formidable against Cork but look, those conditions suited the Offaly team, we’re lighter, younger, faster, quicker and there was a lot of good play from our boys there today, that little bit of swagger, bit of confidence. If we were a bit more clinical in front of goals, who knows?”

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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