Oisín McConville: Galway now have the football smarts that they lacked for too long

Shane McGuigan reminded me a lot of the situation Cillian O’Connor has often found himself in with Mayo, where he works so hard back the field but his team miss his presence closer to goal

LEAP: Derry's Conor Glass and Paul Conroy of Galway. Pic: ©INPHO/Laszlo Geczo

Because Derry had climbed so how high and so far and so quickly, the big question everyone was asking prior to Saturday was how far could they keep climbing? Had they already reached their peak? Was a semi-final the top of their mountain?

When you get that high, the last stage when the air gets thinner is always the hardest part of that ascent. I expected Derry to use different ropes and a different method of trying to scale that mountain but then again, why would Rory Gallagher and his management have doubted the tools and the methods which got them this far?