Regan pleased by reaction to bad start

TURNING defence into attack, that’s what Galway did on Saturday afternoon in Limerick as they came back from a horrendous start to blow Cork away with a magnificent final surge.

Leading the charge from the back was towering centre-back Tony Óg Regan.

“Any time you come out with a win like that you have to be pleased. After a bad start we recovered and I thought we took over control of the game from there,’’ he said.

It began so badly for Galway, a goal in 15 seconds by alert Cork full-forward Paudie O’Sullivan who pounced on an attempted pass by Galway keeper James Skehill and tapped to the net.

“These things happen. We didn’t want James to be made a scapegoat so the other 14 lads knuckled down to hard work. Cork scored the 1-3 but I think we missed as much in the same period. The chances were coming, we stayed creating them and thankfully we started to finish them off. We pulled away then after that.”

One of those most prominent in the second half was centre-forward Ger Farragher who hit three fine points from play in that half including the opener, after just 30 seconds.

“It wasn’t the ideal start!” he said. “We were under a bit of pressure, but that’s something we’ve been working on, that if something like that happens we don’t fall away like we used to. We don’t let the heads drop. We upped the performance after Dublin and upped it again after Clare last week.”

And now with a quarter-final in two weeks, can they up it again?

“We’ve lost a few quarter-finals but there’s no point getting there and not pushing on. That’s the idea now.”

And working on it will be manager John McIntyre, only too acutely aware of the heartache suffered in the All-Ireland quarter-finals of the last two years in his watch, two one-point defeats.

He knows getting over Clare and Cork is fine, but there’s bigger to come. “The heavy hitters are still there,” he pointed out. “It’s a very encouraging win for Galway but we’re only in an All-Ireland quarter-final, and that has been a problem fixture for us over the past two years.”