Out-of-sorts Galway pay big price for error-ridden show

REGRET is a sentiment Galway hurling folk are wholly familiar with but it must taste a great deal different this week following the dethroning of the All-Ireland senior champions by Limerick in last Sunday’s showpiece at Croke Park.

Over the past three years, Micheal Donoghue’s charges have been phenomenal, losing just three championship games – the 2016 Leinster final to Kilkenny and All-Ireland semi-final to Tipperary later that year and last Sunday’s All-Ireland decider to Limerick. The two knockout fixtures – to Tipp and Limerick – were both lost by a mere point.

In all, Donoghue and his squad have won 14 championship games – and drawn two – of their 19 since 2016. It is a strong championship record and, perhaps, it is this most of all that deepens the sense of loss this week.

For the over-riding feeling in the Galway camp must be that their latest defeat – as rare as it was – should not have occurred, especially under the circumstances it did. Yes, a fearless Limerick deservedly took the plaudits but the below par Tribesmen more than contributed to the outcome.

Absent from this display was the flow from previous performances – the succinct passing and movement that has carved open opposition defences in recent years – while the number of turnovers on Galway players over the 70 plus minutes was uncharacteristic to say the least.

In all, 3-7 of Limerick’s 3-16 – 3-9 if one was to include frees – could be put down to Galway errors, some of which were terrible for this level. It opened up the debate if Galway had gone to the well once too often in 2018 – had they been caught, as one former Galway player noted in the lead-in, by one replay too many.

It would appear so as the Tribesmen were a pale shadow of the side that, 12 months earlier, had claimed their first Liam McCarthy Cup in 29 years with a sparkling final display that had Waterford at sixes and sevens.

By half-time on Sunday, it was evident Galway were in trouble. They trailed 1-10 to 0-9 with Limerick corner forward Graeme Mulcahy forcing the ball over the line on 16 minutes despite the attentions of goalkeeper James Skehill and defender Adrian Tuohey.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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