Galway down but not out

Kilkenny 3-19

Galway 1-17

GALWAY did what they do best at O’Connor Park on Saturday evening by failing to live up to the expectation and hype that surrounded this Leinster SHC semi-final replay fixture.

With half of the county, many without tickets, travelling to Tullamore for this one, the buzz seemed to be back in Galway hurling but, sadly, after 70 odd minutes of watching this fare, those clad in the maroon and white were left, once again, with a deep sense of frustration and disappointment.

It was a familiar story. Galway, for the most part, can’t handle expectation but that they failed to deliver back-to-back championship displays – or under-performed – was not even the issue this time. The question now being asked: ‘Are Galway good enough?’

Certainly, given the manner of this display, you would say not and this was no more underlined given that only two of their forwards – Conor Cooney and Jason Flynn – were able to make any sort of inroads into the Kilkenny defence on Saturday evening. The rest? They have cases to answer this week.

Let’s forget for a second that the Galway attack – not for the first time this year – lacked balance and, for all intents and purposes, was rudderless and just look at a couple of statistics that puts the Tribesmen’s second half showing into perspective.

In that period, Galway hammered the Cats on puck-outs – winning the count 17-11 – and yet, despite having this bountiful supply of possession, the Galway attack only scored two points from play in this time. Both of these came from Conor Cooney.

The primary reason Galway could not translate this possession into scores was because they were out-worked by Kilkenny and this was reflected in the fact that the Cats overturned Galway ball twice as much as the Tribesmen did to them. Cody’s men also won twice as much ruck ball.

That comes down to hunger, desire and belief and, in this regard, there seemed to be a large deficiency in a Galway outfit that, although they enjoyed the fillip of a fourth minute Jason Flynn goal in response to a TJ Reid major, largely chased a result over the 70 minutes.

Indeed, given the feverish nature of the early exchanges, and that Galway led 1-4 to 1-1 after just 10 minutes, another classic looked in store. However, as they did the previous week, they inexplicably let Kilkenny get a run on them; the Cats outscoring Galway by ten points to one over a 15 minute spell.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.