London far from ‘awe-struck’ as Galway show room to improve

Date Published: 26-May-2009

GALWAY got their 2009 championship campaign off to a winning start at the Emerald GAA grounds in Ruislip in the blistering London heat on Sunday with a comfortable, if not totally convincing, 11-points win over London in the preliminary round of the Connacht Championship.

There was a real carnival atmosphere in the GAA HQ venue in the North West London borough of Hillingdon as a massive crowd of travelling Galway fans mingled in the glorious sunshine and had the ‘craic’ with the Irish expatriates, but the match itself turned out to be something of an anti-climax.

Galway won, as expected, and the result was never in doubt, but manager Liam Sammon knows there is plenty of room for improvement before Galway’s first big test of the summer against Sligo in Markievickz Park on the last weekend of June.

This was, in a sense, the equivalent of London’s All-Ireland Final. The sight of one of the London substitutes anxiously knocking on Galway’s dressing room door after the game hoping to get a jersey off one of the Tribesmen’s ‘stars’ told a tale of what this fixture means to the exiles. There was
no way he was leaving without the prized maroon jersey in his gear-bag – in years to come, he’ll no doubt be reminiscing and telling his grandchildren about the day he was on the panel of the London team that took on Galway legends like Padraig Joyce and Michael Meehan.

That’s not to say London were star-struck during the match, far from it in fact, and – without wishing to sound condescending – the exiles got ‘stuck in’ early on with a feisty display, put it up to Galway at times, and certainly didn’t disgrace themselves. London were full of heart and honest endeavour and, although they fought the good fight, were limited up front and Galway always had too much talent on show to ensure an upset was never on the cards.

For the Tribesmen, this was…