No excuses as Mayo in a different class to lost Tribesmen
Sometimes, you have to put your hands up, hang your head with genuine mortification and admit: “We were abysmal. We did not play with any organisation, passion, heart or conviction. We did not play like a team or stand up, and be counted like men as we were ripped apart. We let ourselves, and our county down.”
That was the story for Galway and their players from Pearse Stadium yesterday. They were abysmal.
No organisation. No fire and no self-belief.
Whatever modicum of belief they had was gone by the time they handed Mayo three of the softest goals seen in inter-county championship for a long time. All of those goals came from unforced Galway errors. At 3-9 to 0-6 at half-time, the game was over and when Gareth Bradshaw and Niall Coleman were sent off in the second half, the game descended into a joke.
There was a colossal gap in quality between both teams. Mayo looked like Bayern Munich and Galway looked like Wolves.
Mayo are a Division 1 side. An established one at that, and it showed. Their power, conditioning and raw energy left Galway trailing badly in their wake.
Galway looked more like a Division 4 side than one from Division 2 and it was embarrassing at the end.
It would be easy to totally slam the Galway players and call them a disgrace to the county jersey. However that would be to miss the point. This is where Galway senior football is at the moment — in the shadow lands and light years behind the top 10 or 12 sides in the country.
Nobody should be surprised by Galway losing yesterday. Antrim beat Galway last year. They then lost to Tipperary themselves. Hence the defeat is not the surprise, but the manner of it has left a lot of Galway supporters shell shocked.
A 17-point beating is a huge defeat and already the question being asked is where do Galway go from here? Are the U21 successes of 2011 and last month, just another in a long list of false dawns?
The post-match talk yesterday was of getting Kevin Walsh in next year as manager, assuming he finishes up with Sligo after their championship campaign. However, that misses the fact Galway are in a bad place.
Any manager is looking at a few years — at least — to bring the team up to the physical pitch they need to be to compete with Mayo.
Guys like Gary Sweeney, Colin Forde, Keith Kelly, Conor Doherty, Tom Flynn and Fiontán Ó Curraoin are a long way from being able to compete with top class well conditioned inter-county players, assuming they have the football to do so.
Aidan O’Shea was able to plough through Galway players at will and while he is a beast, all the Mayo players were able to win the close contact skirmishes. Anytime the Galway players went into the tackle they were stripped of possession and at times it looked like young slight teenagers in skinny jeans taking on strong mature men. There was only ever going to be one winner.
On the flip side of Galway’s shambolic effort, you really had to admire how Mayo went about their business.
They were totally clinical and looked like a team with a glint in their eye to try and go one better than last year. Considering they were down Michael Conroy, Barry Moran, Chris Barrett, and Andy Moran who came on to a rapturous reception, they looked like a serious outfit.
David Clarke was terrific between the posts and his restarts set up far too many of Mayo’s rapid counteracts. However, Galway were incredibly naive and allowed Lee Keegan to be picked out time and time again in the first half.
Colm Boyle, Lee Keegan, Keith Higgins and Donal Vaughan (1-1 from play) did as they wanted and all four totally outplayed their direct opponents. Up front they shot 4-11 from play while Alan Dillon and Cillian O’Connor, who gave the pass for their last three goals, caught the eye.
Can they win the All-Ireland next September? Probably not. However, based on the kicking they gave Galway yesterday that is their objective. And they might not be too far away either.
