Hotly-anticipated rematch fails to meet expectations

Date Published: {J}

Mountbellew/Moylough 0-10

Micheál Breathnach 0-8

Dara Bradley at Pearse Stadium

Flicking a coin or playing ‘rock-paper-scissors’ would have been a far more entertaining way to settle the impasse between these two rivals.

The Galway senior football championship replay between Mountbellew/Moylough and Micheál Breathnach, evidenced by the healthy crowd in Salthill, was hotly anticipated but it failed to live up to expectations. It was a real anti-climax. Drab, dull, and disappointing.

There was a remarkable lack of intensity on display and – bizarrely given the at times bitter ‘boardroom’ politics that led to the match eventually being replayed – there was an absence of passion from both teams.

The wretched wet and windy elements didn’t lend to free-flowing football either. Instead we got an arm-wrestle, a game of chess, that – to the chagrin of neutrals and the Connemara crowd in attendance – was deservedly won by Mountbellew/Moylough with an error strewn performance that won’t worry any of the title contenders remaining in the competition.

It’s easy to see why the respective negotiators in each club insisted on there being no relegation this season before signing an agreement to replay the clash following third party conciliation at a meeting that lasted over 22 hours Friday week because for long spells both Micheál Breathnach and Mountbellew/Moylough were so poor on Sunday afternoon that whoever lost would have been prime candidates to face the drop.

But you have to wonder how so much effort was put in off the pitch with over 100 days of appeals and politicking; and then both sets of players turn up and perform as if they couldn’t be bothered what the outcome was.

Without the threat of relegation, the lengthy lay-off since the last competitive championship outing, as well as the extreme weather, made for an hour of flat fare that was marked by defensive dominance, where piling as many men behind the ball as possible was the overriding tactic.

Although proceedings on the pitch thankfully passed off without incident – there was scarcely a hard shoulder given never mind a ‘dirty’ challenge – there were times in the packed stand when exchanges between fans verged on ‘heated’.

Mountbellew/Moylough weren’t popular victors but their supporters weren’t exactly magnanimous either and, well, to put it mildly, some of them lacked a bit of class: a small pocket of youngsters goading Micheál Breathnach early on with chants about the ‘illegal’ player, Tommy Ó Conghaile, didn’t endear the black and amber to anyone.

Mountbellew/Moylough’s style of play didn’t win over any neutrals either, but in fairness to them, the North/East Galway outfit were effective.

Their blanket, bunched defence shut-out the Connemara challengers, who scored just two of their eight points from play, all of which were converted by the excellent Peadar Ó Cionnaith.

Mountbellew/Moylough also had the upper hand round centre-field and dominated the aerial battle for kick-outs; kept possession and moved the ball cleverly turning defence into attack with sometimes laborious but highly effective hand passing movements from deep that ended in scores or scoreable frees.

That ultimately was the difference – Mountbellew/Moylough were more penetrating whereas Micheál Breathnach struggled to punch holes in an overcrowded rearguard; and relied too heavily on one player and placed balls.

The winners had a strong wind advantage in the opening half hour but they didn’t really use it, kicking 11 of the match’s 19 wides with six particularly bad wides in the opening quarter.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.