Tribesmen sent packing by ruthless Dublin men in mis-match

DUBLIN 1-24

GALWAY 2-12

THERE can be no quibble about the honesty or integrity of the Galway effort in this showdown with Dublin at Croke Park on Saturday evening, but equally there can be no doubt either about the chasm in class that opened up between the sides in this ultimately very one-sided All-Ireland semi-final.

Galway did burn a few bright early flames, most notably through the power thrusts of Damien Comer that yielded three goal chances, but by the time the midway point of the second-half was reached, the Dublin dominance was complete, as they then proceeded to saunter to an easy victory.

It was a strange enough setting in Croke Park: the Saturday evening fixture seemed to take some of the atmosphere out of the occasion with a very modest showing of Galway supporters in the crowd of 54,716 being seriously outnumbered by the home fans.

This match was competitive for the first 35 minutes — maybe even for a short period early in the second half — but Galway never achieved anything like a high enough chance conversion ratio to exert any level of serious pressure on the All-Ireland champions.

Out of roughly a dozen first-half chances, the Dubs converted 10 of those into scores: Galway, on the other hand, from close on 20 opportunities, only managed to hit the target on eight occasions. Dublin, after struggling a tad – both possession wise and defensively through the first-half – still went in at the interval leading by 1-9 to 1-7.

In mitigation, and in the context of seeing both All-Ireland semi-finals, Dublin do seem to be a class apart from all other pretenders to the national throne: teeming with pace, power and a bench line-up of players who would be certain starters in any other inter-county set-up.

Galway haven’t had a bad season by any barometer, making a league final; winning the Connacht title; and reaching the All-Ireland semi-final — yet the cold reality of their situation is that they would need to find four to five more quality players to give them a chance of competing with a team of Dublin’s calibre.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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