HEADLINE: DO WE FACTOR IN GALWAY (OR NOT)?

ARE Galway contenders for Sam? A couple of months ago, we would have said they were. In fact, we did say they were. Deploying a much under-rated journalistic device, I will now quote myself, in these very pages, February 16, the morning after the 3-12 to 0-13 whipping of Dublin:

“It was cascading, barnstorming football, and one, if repeated in summer, will see them trouble the meanest of defences. It left them 11 points up at the break – 3-7 to 0-5 – and all that remained up for discussion was the final margin. What must be made clear is that Galway combined the stylish brushstrokes with Northern levels of workrate.”

Good stuff that, bedad. You’re crying out for more, surely. And there is more. We were similarly effusive exactly a month later when, wearing black armbands to mark the passing of Frankie Stockwell, the 1950s hero, they left Donegal in tatters:

“Members of the Stockwell family remarked after Frank’s death on Monday that he had started to speak very enthusiastically about this Galway side. Time will tell if they justify his faith, but, for now, they are making enough right noises to suggest they will be there or thereabouts.”

However, in losing to Mayo in the second last game of the league, they showed that familiar problems remain. The back line is simply not mean enough.

Diarmuid Blake at centre-back passes the ball quite superbly, but he just lacks the inches proper to a centre-back, and the instincts of a marker. A solution (Gareth Bradshaw) is at hand, but he might be required to solve a problem at midfield.

Will they start Barry Cullinane and Joe Bergin there? Or Bergin and Niall Coleman, the latter having made a surprise return for the final league game against Kerry? Or Paul Conroy and Bergin? Or Gareth Bradshaw? Or Mark Lydon and someone else?

Two years into his term, Liam Sammon has not managed to gain any semblance of consistency around the middle. The reality is that no combination of the aforementioned will be up to the task of competing at the highest level.

Up front, there’s no doubting their ability. Michael Meehan is one of the best eight forwards in the country. Conroy has a deceptively languid style that masks the ease with which he can ghost by players and into shooting positions.

Paraic Joyce has to measure his contribution carefully.

So, conclusion. Being Galway, they will not lack for belief. Might win Connacht, but there isn’t a vintage crop out west this year. But we don’t see them being anywhere beyond about fourth or fifth. If the cookie crumbled a certain way, they might even make a final, but they’ll hit the glass ceiling sooner or later. Early August.