Knockout blow for poor Galway

Dara Bradley

THE funeral procession started early. The remains of Galway football carried shoulder high to the Connacht championship graveyard long before the final whistle was blown at 5.30pm on the button.

Even Sligo referee Marty Duffy took pity on Galway, and, in sympathy, cut short the burial service – he didn’t prolong the agony and didn’t even bother to play the full time-added-on at Pearse Stadium. Be grateful for small mercies.

We saw it coming very early-on in the first-half, but even still, it doesn’t prepare you for the shock of it. A defeat would be accepted. Mayo are, after all, a top team and will challenge for All-Ireland honours. But the manner of the defeat went over the border of what is acceptable. It is not acceptable, and the players and management team should have come out and openly said so. They may do so yet.

Galway 0-11 Mayo 4-16. It hurts to even type it. A 17 point defeat to our nearest rivals; the worst ever championship performance in living memory, there’s nothing redeemable from the rubble.

It was lamentable stuff. It was demoralising. It was embarrassing and humiliating and it was painful to watch. It was all that and worse.

Days like Sunday in Salthill come once in a blue moon for Galway fans. By now, we’re used to losing championship matches – heck, a whole new generation of young followers has grown up believing Galway lose championship matches. This was different, though. This was a new level of mortification.

Galway followers were left badly exposed in the terraces; defenceless, and in their own back yard and all. The ‘Mayos’ aren’t known for their humility but in fairness to them, mostly, they went easy on us with the gloating; on the field Mayo felt sorry for us too, and won pulling up.

Oh, the ignominy of it all – we almost longed for the lousy ‘Mayos’ to start bragging and slagging proper. But no, it was mostly just pity.

No need to put them in stocks and fire rotten fruit at them in public – but Galway football supporters deserve an acknowledgment from the squad that Sunday wasn’t good enough and they need an explanation as to how it went so badly wrong.

The match itself wasn’t even as testing for the visitors as a training session: They’ve literally had tougher run-outs among themselves in McHale Park.

A field of grey, white, dried-out dandelion seed heads would have put up more of a resistance in a tornado than the Galway footballers managed against Mayo.

And the defence, at times, was about as effective as a scarecrow made of birdseed. The backs were just so green, lacking cool heads and experience.

For the first goal, there were three or four Galway defenders in situ to prevent it but not one of them put a dent in Cathal Carolan. He couldn’t believe his luck that Gary Sweeney and Colin Forde momentarily lost the use of their shoulders.

Tom Flynn gave a reckless pass away for the second goal and Mayo pounced lightning fast to punish. For the third, Galway were caught acting the maggot, short-passing among themselves in defence before being dispossessed. It was Hari Kari stuff.

Earlier, Cillian O’Connor could have bagged another goal when Forde sent a hospital pass back across the face of the goal to keeper, Maghnus Breathnach. Mercifully, he took the point. You’d have to feel for the ‘keeper, in this his championship debut – the standard of defending in front of him was chronic.

The gulf in class was enormous. Beforehand, there was a sense that Galway could cause an upset – in each of the past three times Mayo reached an All-Ireland final, the following year Galway has toppled them. But not this time. This time, Liam Horan’s charges blew away any chance of an upset – the omens didn’t look good when Mayo led 1-5 to 0-3 after 15 minutes, hopes of a Galway victory faded further when Mayo stretched that led to 1-8 to 0-4 on 25 minutes, and when Mayo led by 2-8 to 0-4 after 31 minutes, the game as a contest was all over but the Galway nightmare was just getting into to the horror stages.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.