Galway’s mixed bag is not enough to thwart the Cats

Kilkenny 0-20

Galway 0-18

AS a yardstick to judge Galway’s prospects of promotion from Division 1B in the upcoming National Hurling League campaign, Sunday’s Walsh Cup decider at Nowlan Park was inconclusive.

Too many front-liners are still missing and too few of the newcomers in action offered sufficient evidence that they have the potential to thrive at this level. This is the trial and error time of year for most counties and Galway are no different.

Having used almost 40 players over their four-games in the Walsh Cup, Micheál Donoghue and his management have certainly been spreading their net in the search for new talent, but you couldn’t say anyone has exploded into their short-term team planning.

Two mis-matches against college teams and a relatively routine win over Laois isn’t the ideal environment in any event to really test the mettle of those players on trial, but last Sunday against Kilkenny was a different ball-game altogether.

This was the acid early-season test and a few of the Galway team found the going difficult. Midfielder Dan Nevin was taken off, so was corner back Jack Grealish, while Sean McInerney, who was in the wars, didn’t finish the game either.

Centre back Martin Dolphin had the misfortune to be stretchered off with a back injury in the second half, but he wasn’t having a significant impact on the action up until then. Galway also deployed several inexperienced substitutes without much dramatic impact.

For all that, the Tribesmen were competitive against a typically physical Kilkenny outfit in front of a big attendance of 4,111. They were second best for much of the seventy plus minutes, but there was an honesty of effort even if many of the Galway players tended to perform in fits and starts.

Only for the second-half dismissal of Kilkenny wing forward Pat Lyng on a second yellow card, Galway would undoubtedly have been beaten by more as their numerical advantage for the final 20 minutes changed the dynamics of the contest.

They trailed by 0-18 to 0-13 at that juncture and were always being kept at arm’s length by the determined home team which had stand-out contributions from Kieran Joyce at wing back, midfielder Ollie Walsh, who scored three points from play, and attacker Richie Hogan.

In the final quarter, Galway did their best to turn the game around against 14-man opponents and McInerney had a clear goal chance in the 55th minute only to drag his low effort wide of the far posts. Subsequently, Joseph Cooney tested Elon Murphy’s reflexes from close range and they will also rue some wayward free-taking from full forward Jason Flynn.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.