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: