Galway’s improved conversion rate central to toppling champs

By Patrick Earley

MATCHES between Galway and Tipperary don’t get any easier to watch do they? Back and forth throughout, there wasn’t a moment where you could be confident of a Galway win until Johnny Murphy eventually sounded the final whistle.

Even that was stressful. Surely, after Joe Canning had pointed the final free of the game that should have been it? Murphy had played well over the indicated time of three minutes and Galway had cleared Tipp’s final venture forward before Evan Niland won that free but still, Tipp got one more chance and it took Daithi Burke to come up with a massive win in the Galway danger area for Murphy to decide that he’d seen enough.

That feeling at the final whistle was as sweet as in 2015 and ’17. Galway had faced adversity but had shown the courage and composure to weather the storm and come up with the big plays when they needed to edge ahead come full-time.

Make no mistake about it, this wasn’t a vintage Galway display. In terms of overall quality and individual performances, it was probably down a notch or two from the Leinster final display.

Conditions had a fair bit to do with that, for though the day itself was favourable, underfoot conditions were soft making life tricky for both sides.

Two Galway slips led to Tipperary goals – that’s not something you can plan for but that’s what transpired and after responding superbly to the concession of the first goal to Seamus Callanan, Patrick ‘Bonner’ Maher’s second came at a time where Tipp were in the ascendency and rocked Galway.

Leading by two at the first water break and four points by the 23rd minute, it seemed inconceivable that Galway would trail by four at the break but such is the nature of Galway vs Tipperary games, momentum changes and the Premier County capitalised to devastating affect in the final 10 minutes of the half.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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