Troubled Galway must come out with fire in their bellies

Inside Track with John McIntyre

GALWAY football supporters may have developed a certain immunity to feelings of disappointment and frustration over the past decade such has been the scale of poor results for the Tribesmen, but none of them would have been prepared for the disaster which unfolded in Portlaoise on Saturday evening . . . for this was a shocker of extreme proportions.

Even by the standards of Galway’s ongoing struggles, a 15-point drubbing by second-raters Laois has led to almost unprecedented consternation and despair in the county’s football heartlands. It represents arguably Galway’s worst league defeat in living memory and has heaped renewed pressure on manager Alan Mulholland and his misfiring squad.

Galway shouldn’t be this bad, but they are. Managers are nearly always the fall guys in such situations, but the players can’t be allowed to duck their responsibilities either for an alarming trouncing which has left fans demoralised and searching for answers. The killing part was that it had looked a decent enough team – at least, on paper – assembled by Mulholland and his mentors for the trip to the midlands.

There was a fair clutch of All-Ireland winning U-21 players in Galway’s ranks, there was no shortage of experience either and with eight of the squad involved in Connacht’s long-awaited Inter-provincial triumph at Tuam Stadium the previous weekend, the expectation was that the men in maroon had a fighting chance of getting off the mark in Division Two.

But Galway hardly fought at all in O’Moore Park. Instead, they were embarrassingly submissive against a well-organised and tactically smarter Laois outfit. The lack of leadership in the squad is an old chestnut by this stage, but it was the lack of pride reportedly evident on Saturday evening which has put the spotlight on the players’ mindset and bottle.

At least, Galway had played in parts in difficult opening league assignments against Meath and Donegal, but they collapsed altogether in what had been perceived as the most winnable of the team’s early group fixtures. Now facing a desperate battle against relegation, Galway need to stop the rot as quickly as possible before the damage becomes irretrievable in the short term.

Against Laois, they were too lateral; too laboured in possession; lacking directness; and off the pace. It all contributed to a nightmare performance and the writing was on the wall when they trailed by 1-7 to 0-5 at the interval having been backed by the wind. Midfielder Kevin Meaney’s goal was the result of a turnover in the Galway defence and with Ross Munnelly and Donal Kingston kicking points for sport, Laois more or less controlled the battleground.

Naturally, it will be difficult for the management and players to lift themselves after such a humiliating defeat, but they have no choice. Every game is different and Galway do have the potential to be much better than this. Feeling sorry is no remedy and they must take a leaf out of the books of the Dublin hurlers. Remember, they were abject against Galway in the first round of the league at Pearse Stadium only to turn it around with an aggressive, high intensity effort which floored Clare just seven days later.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.