Maturity the key for Galway, says Bowles

RICHARD BOWLES, trainer of the Galway team which captured the TG4 All-Ireland Ladies Football senior title for the first time at the week-end, found it easy to empathise with the Dublin team which suffered defeat for the second year in a row.

As a former Limerick goalkeeper who kept a clean sheet in the 1991 Munster final against Kerry in Killarney he recalled yesterday how disappointed he had felt after his own county had failed to beat the Kingdom twice in this year's decider.

"You'd have to feel sorry for Dublin. They had two chances of goals in the first half and if even one of them had gone in we might not have been able to come back in the second half," he said. "But, you'd have to say this was a great step forward for Galway. Over the last two years they upped the intensity of their training and in the last year in particular, the maturity levels had come on. We nearly beat Mayo in the semi-final last year. Probably a bit of immaturity cost us victory on the day."