Battling Wexford fail to ruffle rock-solid Tribesmen's defence

Galway 1-20 Wexford 1-10

Picking from two All-Ireland winning minor teams of 1999 and 2000 and coached by the same man who steered them to those minor successes John Hardiman, Galway, looked extremely sharp, full of running and possessed a number of outstanding players, of whom midfielder Ger Farragher was head and shoulders above the rest.

The Castlegar youngster, who won the Irish Examiner Junior Sports Star Award two years ago, showed his prowess as a freetaker, scoring 13 points, two of them magnificent efforts from side-line cuts. While Farragher was undoubted the star of the show, Galway also had excellent players in goalkeeper Adrian Diviney, who made a number of great saves, Shane Kavanagh at full-back, Conor Dervan at centre-back, and the pacy Damien Hayes and Kevin Brady in attack.