Boss Walsh bemoans Sligo lay-off

THEY’RE like busses, these championship matches. You wait nine weeks for a game to come your way and, when it does you have to play two inside a fortnight.

Kevin Walsh for one can’t see the sense in that. Prior to yesterday, the last time the Sligo manager patrolled the sideline was in late April for a Division Four final against Antrim.

Now, after yesterday’s Connacht championship defeat to Galway, he will have to lift his team in time for the second round of All-Ireland qualifiers on July 11.

It was no rant from Walsh. He accepts that the delay in starting their championship has its origins in provincial structures, and the size of Connacht in particular.

The thing is, he isn’t asking for much. Why, he asked, could this game not have been brought forward by a couple of weeks?

“We are not going to get many challenge matches played now,” he said. “It is straight back into it and we have been idle 10/11 weeks. That doesn’t make sense to me.”

It is worth pointing out Galway’s only competitive action in the last two months has been a win over London but Walsh’s point is not generic to Sligo and deserves some scrutiny.

It begs a question too. Would Galway have escaped across the county border with their pride and provincial ambitions still intact had Sligo not been so rusty?

Walsh certainly seemed to think that their hibernation since the Antrim tie had contributed to a tally of six second-half wides that cost them so very dearly.

“When it came back to 10 points each we had one or two chances to get another one or two on the board and maybe the breeze was a factor.

“All those chances are there. Galway could probably say they could have got four or five more points early on as well, but it was disappointing not to finish off the job.”

They deserved at least a draw and Liam Sammon admitted as much. The Galway manager emerged from the dressing room with the sort of guilty smile a naughty schoolboy might wear. No doubt about it, Galway got lucky.

“Very relieved,” said Sammon.

“I think we would have settled for a draw at the end. In fairness, we got one break at midfield and got the ball forward and scored a point out of it. Then, once we had it up this side of the field, we were in it.

“Sligo must be very disappointed. They were deserving of a draw at least. They missed a number of chances in the second half and we had very limited supply of ball up front. We are certainly glad to be out of here, no doubt about that.”

It was the odd touch of class that proved crucial. Michael Meehan nabbed two points at a stage in the second half when Sligo had drawn level and the visitors had gone 22 minutes without a score.

And then there was Páraic Joyce. Superb for the first half hour, the Killererin forward had seen his influence wane as Sligo recovered but he reemerged towards the end.

“When you needed something to happen you had Michael Meehan and Páraic Joyce and it was Páraic who robbed the ball to send into Armstrong for a goal.

“You can’t beat that experience that class and that experience and he certainly has that.”