Nightmare in Salthill

Dara Bradley

WHERE to start. What can one say about Galway’s worst defeat in living memory, possibly the county’s most crushing loss ever?
It was demoralising, yes. It was embarrassing and humiliating and it was painful to watch. It was all that and worse.

Nothing about Galway’s record-equalling championship defeat to Mayo on Sunday offers hope; there’s nothing that can be salvaged from the wreckage of losing 4-16 to 0-11 to our fiercest rivals.

And to make it worse, Mayo stopped playing in the second-half and still managed to win with 17 points to spare . . . and all this in Galway’s own backyard, Pearse Stadium.

Galway finished the day with 13 men – captain Gareth Bradshaw was first to let himself and his team down, the Moycullen man receiving his marching orders for an off the ball striking incident three minutes after half-time, midfielder Niall Coleman followed him a quarter of an hour or so later for a similar, silly offence.

Galway, like spoilt children, were so frustrated about being outplayed that they were lucky referee Marty Duffy didn’t show more of them the line. 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, James Horan’s charges blew away any chance of a shock – 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 advantage 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 Sentinel.