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Monday, July 27, 2009
WHEN GALWAY boss John McIntyre put his back to the concrete and faced the microphones after yesterday’s game, he’d likely been forced to change his script a little.
With five minutes left his side looked safe, but then Waterford wrote an alternative ending.
"You can be insular about things, but Waterford finished in a blaze of glory," said McIntyre.
"We gave them the opening and they took it. They got the goal and human nature being what it is, it lifted them and probably was a spear through our hearts.
"Having done so much right and looking like we were still in control of the match – we were four points up with three or four minutes to go – but at the end of the game, those last three or four minutes will haunt us."
"Off the top of my head we had a few opportunities we could have pressed on with, we maybe weren’t clinical enough with them. Certainly in the first half we probably deserved to be more than four points up at half-time.
"But if you leave a team hanging on you always run the risk of getting caught, and that’s what happened with Galway today.
"I can’t fault those players for their effort and commitment, they gave it everything today but they’re absolutely devastated inside there.
"Any time you lose a match by a point it torments you for life: I’ve lost many a match in the past by a point and I’m still getting over some of them. And now I have to start all over again.
"It’s much easier to cope when you’re beaten by eight or nine points – there are no ifs, buts or maybes, no explanations, no post mortems, you were just beaten by a better team."
McIntyre wasn’t offering excuses or explanations yesterday, though it was Galway’s third weekend game in-a-row.
"I’ve no excuses to make, I’m not going to take away from what Waterford did there – it was a great comeback and I wish them the best of luck against Kilkenny.
"I’m not going to go down the excuses route – I wasn’t making them before the game and I’m not going to make them now. We lost the match and that’s it."
He conceded that when Galway were six up in the second-half, a maroon victory looked likely.
"Yes, and later in the game, when we were four points up, it still looked good for us. We had an attack that broke down, maybe the wrong option was taken, and Waterford worked the ball down the field for a goal. I knew straightaway it would be a dogfight from there to the finish and it was a case of us holding on and hopefully.
"In fairness to Waterford, they caught fire with the goal, as any team worth its salt would. People forget this Waterford team has been through a lot, they’re battle-hardened and if you go back to the Munster final, they were a long way behind Tipperary but they still kept fighting. They carried that bit of momentum into today’s game, and fair dues to them."
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