Archive News
Mixed performance from Kernan’s men means relegation battle on the cards
Date Published: {J}
Cork 1-19
Galway 1-17
Dara Bradley
No need to push the panic button just yet. It’s a tad early for that but Galway are now in serious danger of being dragged into a relegation battle for survival in Division 1 of the National Football League after a mixed performance saw the Tribesmen fall to a far superior Cork team at a floodlit Páirc Uí Rinn on Saturday evening.
Galway started the league brilliantly last year and were in flying form in February and March but faded badly when it mattered as the season progressed – and the poor form continued through a lacklustre Championship campaign when it became apparent that the hard graft hadn’t been put in over the dark nights of Winter.
There has been no real early promise shown so far b
y Joe Kernan’s men and we must now hope that the new manager has run the socks off them and pushed them to the limit in Winter training – a regime that could stand to them later on this year.
Certainly, Galway looked flatfooted and rusty in the first half at Páirc Uí Rinn and if that staleness isn’t because of a rigorous training schedule and rather a continuation of last season’s mediocrity then there is cause for concern. Only time will tell.
But there was enough positives in Galway’s second half display against the 2009 Munster champions and All-Ireland runners-up to assuage supporters’ jitters and the Armagh man will have learned a lot about his charges’ abilities and limitations from this outing by the Lee, which in the end turned out to be an honourable defeat.
Let’s get the negatives out of the way. Captain Seán Armstrong pulled a hamstring just 10 minutes in, which was a massive blow as he had showed early verve, and the Salthill man could be facing several weeks on the sideline.
Nicky Joyce, who along with the ever reliable Michael Meehan proved to be the westerners only constant attacking threat, was also injured late on and it is difficult to see where the scores will come from for the remaining league fixtures if the Killererin man is facing a lengthy lay-off.
When Armstrong was hauled ashore, Galway’s half-forward line was anonymous and asked no serious questions of Cork’s half-back line of Paudie Kissane, Ger Spillane and Noel O’Leary who were always in control.
Conor Healy and Damien Dunleavy along the flanks were simply not at the races on Saturday and arguably could have been substituted earlier, while Joe Bergin was unusually subdued when switched from the edge of the square.
The half-back line was only marginally better – although the dynamism of David Reilly caught the eye and the Menlough man looks the part, even chipping in with a point – but collectively they far too often allowed the Rebels saunter through with ease, putting unnecessary pressure on the last line of defence. Where was Gary O’Donnell and in particular centre back Diarmuid Blake when Cork targeted their channels?
For more, read this week’s Connacht Sentinel.
People’s living conditions less than 100 years ago were frightening. We have come a long way. We talk about water charges today, but back then the local District Councils were erecting pumps for local communities and the lovely town of Mountbellew, according to Council minutes, had open sewers,” says Galway County Council archivist Patria McWalter.
Patria believes we “need to take pride in our history, and we should take the same pride in our historical records as we do in our built heritage”. When you see the wealth of material in her care, this belief makes sense.
She is in charge of caring for the rich collection of administrative records owned by Galway County Council and says “these records are as much part of our history as the Rock of Cashel is. They document our lives and our ancestors’ lives. And nobody can plan for the future unless you learn from the past, what worked and what didn’t”.
Archivists and librarians are often unfairly regarded as being dry, academic types, but that’s certainly not true of Patria. Her enthusiasm is infectious as she turns the pages of several minute books from Galway’s Rural District Councils, all of them at least 100 years old.
Part of her role involved cataloguing all the records of the Councils – Ballinasloe, Clifden, Galway, Gort, Loughrea, Mountbellew, Portumna and Tuam. These records mostly consisted of minutes of various meetings.
When she was cataloguing them she realised their worth to local historians and researchers, so she decided to compile a guide to their content. The result is For the Record: The Archives of Galway’s Rural District Councils, which will be a valuable asset to anybody with an interest in history.
Many representatives on these Councils were local personalities and several were arrested during the political upheaval of the era, she explains.
And, ushering in a new era in history, women were allowed to sit on these Rural District Councils – at the time they were not allowed to sit on County Councils.
All of this information is included in Patria’s introductory essay to the attractively produced A4 size guide, which gives a glimpse into how these Rural Councils operated and the way political thinking changed in Ireland during a short 26-year period. In the early 1900s, these Councils supported Home Rule, but by 1920, they were calling for full independence and refusing to recognise the British administration.
“I love the tone,” says Patria of the minutes from meetings. “The language was very emotive.”
That was certainly true of the Gort Rural District Council. At a meeting in 1907, following riots in Dublin at the premiere of JM Synge’s play, The Playboy of the Western World the councillors’ response was vehement. They recorded their decision to “protest most emphatically against the libellous comedy, The Playboy of the Western World, that was belched forth during the past week in the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, under the fostering care of Lady Gregory and Mr Yeats. We congratulate the good people of Dublin in howling down the gross buffoonery and immoral suggestions that are scattered throughout this scandalous performance.
For more from the archives see this week’s Tribunes here
Date Published: 23-Jan-2013
SLIGO 0-9
GALWAY 1-4
FRANK FARRAGHER IN ENNISCRONE
GALWAY’S first serious examination of the 2013 season rather disturbingly ended with a rating well below the 40% pass mark at the idyllic, if rather Siberian, seaside setting of Enniscrone on Sunday last.
The defeat cost Galway a place in the FBD League Final against Leitrim and also put a fair dent on their confidence shield for the bigger tests that lie ahead in February.
There was no fluke element in this success by an understrength Sligo side and by the time Leitrim referee, Frank Flynn, sounded the final whistle, there wasn’t a perished soul in the crowd of about 500 who could question the justice of the outcome.
It is only pre-season and last Sunday’s blast of dry polar winds did remind everyone that this is far from summer football, but make no mistake about it, the match did lay down some very worrying markers for Galway following a couple of victories over below par third level college teams.
Galway did start the game quite positively, leading by four points at the end of a first quarter when they missed as much more, but when Sligo stepped up the tempo of the game in the 10 minutes before half-time, the maroon resistance crumbled with frightening rapidity.
Some of the statistics of the match make for grim perusal. Over the course of the hour, Galway only scored two points from play and they went through a 52 minute period of the match, without raising a white flag – admittedly a late rally did bring them close to a draw but that would have been very rough justice on Sligo.
Sligo were backable at 9/4 coming into this match, the odds being stretched with the ‘missing list’ on Kevin Walsh’s team sheet – Adrian Marren, Stephen Coen, Tony Taylor, Ross Donovan, David Kelly, David Maye, Johnny Davey and Eamon O’Hara, were all marked absent for a variety of reasons.
Walsh has his Sligo side well schooled in the high intensity, close quarters type of football, and the harder Galway tried to go through the short game channels, the more the home side bottled them up.
Galway badly needed to find some variety in their attacking strategy and maybe there is a lot to be said for the traditional Meath style of giving long, quick ball to a full forward line with a big target man on the edge of the square – given Paul Conroy’s prowess close to goal last season, maybe it is time to ‘settle’ on a few basics.
Defensively, Galway were reasonably solid with Gary Sice at centre back probably their best player – he was one of the few men in maroon to deliver decent long ball deep into the attacking zone – while Finian Hanley, Conor Costello and Gary O’Donnell also kept things tight.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
Date Published: 23-Jan-2013
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