Doyle’s final analysis can turn to Clare

Galway 1-19 Wexford 1-21

One consequence of that understandable approach to management has been a personally imposed blackout on the progress of the Clare U21s through Munster and Saturday’s first Bord Gáis Energy All-Ireland semi-final.

“I didn’t even look at the Munster championship,” said the Wexford manager, whose voice betrayed none of the emotion on show from his fellow county men and women at the final whistle on Saturday night. “It was of no relevance to me unless we got to the All-Ireland final. At the end of the day, you can over analyse things too. You have to go out and hurl. That’s what we’re looking to do.”

The Clare players have taken on the mantle of bogeymen at this level of hurling and yet Wexford showed there is more than a little about them as they wrestled with Galway for 60-odd minutes of exceptional hurling without ever forcing a submission.

Wexford were simply the stronger finishers, pulling away from a Galway side playing its first game of the year in the last exchanges, but the outcome was in doubt to the last with Galway sub Jack Carr having a last-gasp shot from distance saved.

For the victors it made up for the manner in which their summer had been spoiled so unexpectedly 12 months ago when the Leinster champions had fallen flat on this very same sod at the same stage against Antrim.

This was a remarkable game, too, but for different reasons.

The pair drew level 10 times throughout, but this was no case of nip and tuck from tape to post. Wexford peeled off five points on the trot in the first half, Galway seven on the bounce either side of the interval. Momentum grabbed in great big chunks. “Savage,” as Galway manager Johnnie Kelly described it.

“It’s very hard on the line to analyse a game,” said Doyle. “We had spoken all the last number of weeks that no matter how far they got ahead we weren’t to start going for goals or silly shooting, that we’d plug them back point by point and stay in the game.

“And we did. We outscored them seven points to two in the end of the game. We took the wrong options in the forwards, particularly at times in the first half, but we were creating chances and that’s all I can look for.”

The hurling was as intense as it was sublime. A fair sprinkling of senior panellists lined out on either side and in Padraic Brehony, Cathal Mannion, Jack Guiney and Conor McDonald the reasoning behind such early elevation up the ranks was clear.

The first half ended with almost a score per minute and just five wides recorded. Neither was a rate that could be maintained, of course, and it was Galway’s errant shooting after the interval that proved the difference.

Between wides and efforts falling short, the Connacht side added nine errant efforts to just the two recorded before the change of ends and Kelly could only agree that it was a costly area of operations.

“We threw everything at this,” said Kelly of a side containing 10 of the 2011 All-Ireland-winning minors. “It was a great game. I don’t want to be knocking anyone, but we did have a lot of wides. The effort was there. We put everything into this.”

Kelly’s words were delivered with a voice that teetered on the brink of collapse. At the final whistle, he had fallen to his knees and stared at the turf. It was a pose that lasted seconds but, with the euphoria around him, felt like an eternity.

“All I can do is go back to these guys and thank them for their effort… the sacrifices that these young Galway players put in since February. Even going back to last year: we blooded a lot of them young lads last year against Clare with the intention of this year.”

Raw doesn’t describe it.

In a way, it is remarkable that Galway can continually report for duty at such late stages of the underage competitions in expectation rather than hope given their continued isolation west of the Shannon during the provincial campaigns.

Kelly accepted there was an argument there, but the will to elaborate on it two evenings ago simply wasn’t there. There was a brief reference to some refereeing decisions as well, but the statement dissolved before the internal fire could be properly stoked.

Their day was done. Literally: their day.

Scorers for Galway: P Brehony 1-6, S Maloney 0-6 (3f), C Mannion 0-3, A Tuohy, J Glynn, E Burke and B Moloney 0-1 each.

Scorers for Wexford: J Guiney 1-8 (7f), C McDonald, K Foley, G Moore 0-3 each, P Foley 0-2, A Nolan and C Devitt 0-1 each.

GALWAY: S Mannion; D O’Donoghue, J Hanbury, P Killeen; B Keane, D Higgins, A Tuohy; C Diviney, E Burke; P Brehony, S Maloney, C Mannion; J Flynn, J Glynn, D Dolan.

Subs: B Molloy for Dolan (23), E Brannigan for Diviney (47), J Carr for Flynn (56).

WEXFORD: O O’Leary; E Conroy, L Ryan, G Foley; A Kenny, S O’Gorman, J O’Connor; A Nolan, C Devitt; J Guiney, G Moore, P Foley; R Clarke, C McDonald, K Foley.

Subs: J White for G Foley (36), P Sutton for Clarke (43), S Cash for Devitt (51), C O’Leary for Foley (54).

Referee: D Kirwan (Cork).