Keating ready to start firing after bagging his first goal of the season

Ruairi Keating admits to a sense of relief at having opened his goal account for the season, but says it was far more important that Galway United kept battling last week to claim a draw in a game that, on balance, they probably should have won.

The Dublin native, who grew up in Westport and is back for a second spell at United, reacted quickest to his own header coming off the post to fire home from close range for the first of two United equalisers against UCD last Friday, a goal which summed-up the broader United attitude of not giving up.

“You have to keep going, get stuck in and work hard and everything else will come after that,” he said of what was his third goal in a United jersey.

“We need to keep going, we need to come away from a performance like that against UCD and build on it and push on and start putting teams to the sword and getting the wins and climbing up that table,” he said.

Keating first joined United at the start of 2016 from Sligo Rovers, and made his debut in the season-opener, a 3-1 win away to St Patrick’s Athletic, but was taken off just before half-time after appearing to faint on the pitch, with the team doctor later suggesting he was dehydrated.

That was not the first impression he was hoping for, but he showed no ill-effects and went on to score in his next two games, a 4-0 win over Bray Wanderers, and a 1-1 draw with Sligo Rovers.

It looked to be a flying start for a man who also had a spell with Finn Harps, but the goals dried up and he failed to find the net in any of his next 15 games before leaving United for what was a third spell at Finn Harps.

He then moved to Torquay United, helping the side clinch promotion for the National League South in 2018/19; and then made the 400-mile trip north to join Gateshead in January of last year, making 10 appearances and scoring twice before he and Gateshead agreed to terminate his contract by mutual consent in November.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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