A good game would be nice, but ...
And they know the game badly needs a shock result to prevent another bashing from the media carnival that in recent years always seems to follow the opening rounds of the championship as if half expecting a decent game of football.
While I and many more besides would love to see more football like that played between Cork and Kerry recently, the reality is that the early stages of the football championship were almost always thus and until such a time as Paraic Duffy and his cohorts sit down and genuinely consider the abolition of the provincial championships we will have to accept the uneven way that a GAA football season unfolds.
We will also have to put up and shut up if we hear managers and players with different perspectives and opposite imperatives to our own telling us that their raison d’etre is results not the fanciful notion of entertaining the masses.
When you strip away all the romance associated with Sligo’s Connacht breakthrough two years ago and when it is judged on the ground of sheer aesthetics, the stylistic shortcomings (that were later to be cruelly exposed by Cork in Croke Park) are there for all to see.
Nobody with a sense of natural justice would want to begrudge the Yeats County their landmark achievement of 2007 and I’m sure Sligo people would gladly take a similar result tomorrow even if it meant a derogation of football principles along the way.
Mayo’s annihilation of Roscommon last weekend has obviated the need in the Sligo mindset for a pretty game of football and all rational Sligo folk will know deep down that their best chance of beating Galway tomorrow is in a dogfight.
Because there are still so many on both sides who have a vivid recollection of that famous day in the Hyde, the chances of an upset are probably diminished.
In Galway’s case the stability provided by and the respectful affection afforded to current manager Liam Sammon is in stark contrast to two years ago, where Peter Ford was probably at the end of a very long tether after a few years wrestling with the Galway footballing philosophy.
The transformation under Sammon is best exemplified by the form of Michael Meehan in the last 18 months. Subdued and substituted early in the second-half under Ford two years ago in the Hyde, Meehan has transformed his play and his on-field personality so impressively in recent championship matches that he is now an indispensable cog in the Galway machine.
Unfortunately for Meehan and for Galway – and despite a turnover in the half-forward line in particular – they are still playing with much the same hand.
While Sammon has re-shuffled the cards and re-energised the likes of Paraic Joyce and Declan Meehan many Galway supporters are genuinely apprehensive ahead of tomorrow’s trip to Markievicz Park.
Antrim’s defeat of Donegal two weeks ago has put the antennae up and some are possibly too tuned in to the bizarre influences floating around the cosmos that might affect the performance of their team in Markievicz.
We even read Sammon this week harking back to 1975 as if that had any relevance in the context of tomorrow’s match. The bottom line is that Galway, unlike Donegal, are a more assured Division One team and an outfit from the lower divisions (no matter how organised and motivated) such as Sligo should not be able to derail their championship campaign. Far too much has been made of the Kevin Walsh factor too, as even his unique insight into the Galway psyche and his first-hand knowledge of some of their players will only have a very limited value at 2pm tomorrow.
SLIGO may hope to gain some advantage from their very capable full-back line where Charlie Harrison, Noel Maguire and Ross Donovan are proven performers but if and when Mattie Clancy goes rambling out the field the space created inside will test them like nothing they’ve encountered so far this year.
Kevin Walsh was lamenting the system that creates a nine week hiatus for his team earlier this week and this is surely where the period of inactivity will be most in evidence.
Outside that half acre, the trust being placed in Neil Ewing at centre back will be pushed to breaking point by Padraic Joyce and even if the midfield of Paul Conroy and Gary O’Donnell has a callow look about it, Tony Taylor and Eugene Mullen are hardly streetwise enough to counteract them, especially with Joe Bergin hovering under the kick-outs.
At the other end of the field, Mark Brehony is unlikely to get much change from Finian Hanley given he is just returning from injury.
Hanley is not the most accommodating of markers at the best of times so a break-even situation for the underdog is being optimistic. With Mayo waiting in the wings, let’s just hope a good game of football isn’t too much to hope for.
