O’Mahony says Galway must up the ante against Red Hands

JOHN O’Mahony is optimistic - if not confident - that his team can improve considerably on their display against Louth two weeks ago for tomorrow’s football qualifier against Tyrone in Croke Park (4pm).

O’Mahony, one of the most respected coaches in the game, agrees his team produced better play towards the latter end of the League, when they edged out Tyrone after a marvellous game in Pearse Stadium to qualify for the final against Kerry.

“In the provincial championship, you don’t have big gaps, it’s a more even playing field. Then you have local rivalries, the neighbourliness and the lack of neighbourliness and the tribalism. In our case, we lost a few players through injuries which would account for our form. We went into the Mayo game without the backbone of our team of recent years - Sean Óg de Paor, Kevin Walsh, Gary Fahey.

“We haven’t performed in the championship so far. We put up our hands to that, first time,’’ he added.

“But it doesn’t mean we are rock bottom either. It doesn’t mean that we would not be able to rise to it on Saturday.’’

At the same time, he concedes that the form displayed against Louth would not be good enough to beat the All-Ireland champions.

But he was happy with aspects of the display, namely that a few players showed a recovery of form.

In the interim, they have lost Kevin Walsh to injury, which the manager describes as ‘another setback’.

“I have no doubt we will get a better performance. It will be an honest performance, which is what we always give. But we have to play over 70 minutes - and we haven’t done that.

“If we could get that performance we’d be close. How close, we won’t know until the day.’’

The fact that Tyrone have struggled for form doesn’t surprise him - attributing it to ‘second year’ syndrome.

“They were bound to hit a wall somewhere along the way, apart from the injuries and they hit it quite late. But they certainly seem to have come out of it. They have got some of their injured players back, like Gerard Cavlan and Stephen O’Neill, who weren’t there when we played them in the League. On the other hand, we have lost a few.

“Tyrone are still a quality team and I’m delighted we’re playing them. I wasn’t disappointed with the draw. The way I look at it, it’s a difficult draw. But I would also hope it’s a difficult draw for Tyrone.”

One team will come out of this game enhanced, feeling they are in with a ‘right chance’ of doing well in the championship, he says.

And what of Armagh, a team he rightly points out weren’t mentioned in anyone’s list of pre-season favourites, but who have shown their ambition is still burning.

“That’s the nature of the championship nowadays. Once the work goes in, you have certain quality in your team and the ambition is there. Whether people write a team off or not, it doesn’t necessarily mean you are finished. Armagh have enough quality players to decide when their day is finished - not anybody else.

“I hope we wouldn’t go quietly either.”