Cooney goal gave us daylight, says Tribes boss

Galway boss Micheál Donoghue pointed to Conor Cooney’s 56th-minute goal as the decisive score in bridging a seven-year gap to the county’s last league final appearance.

Limerick had enjoyed the better of the second-half proceedings before Cooney put six between the teams with a well-taken goal.

More pertinently, his finish all but ended Limerick’s faint hopes of catching their opponents.

“We went in at half-time with a few points of a lead. In fairness to them, they came back at us in the second half and Conor’s goal came at an opportune time. That gave us a bit of daylight from there to the end.”

The winning manager was pleased with Cooney’s scoreboard contribution, as he was the entire full-forward line.

They had eight points to their name by the call for half-time and stretched that tally out to 1-10 come the finish.

“Conor looked good. He stood up and got 1-4 from play. Conor is a good player and is always a threat.

“Hopefully, he is coming into form at the right time.

“When the ball went in, the full-forward line looked sharp. In the first half, we had a lot of ball in the middle third and we were giving them opportunities. They got a good return today.”

Further back, the Galway manager couldn’t but be impressed with how his defence completely nullified the Limerick attack and, in the process, kept three of their starting six forwards scoreless.

“We are still looking at different players for different positions so it is encouraging in that regard to hold their forwards to three points from play. We are delighted with the win but there is still plenty of work to be done.”

He added: “As I said during the week, there are only two national titles you can go for so it is nice to be in the league final.

“Our aim at the outset of the league was to go as far as we can and to get us as close as possible to our first championship game.

“I think we are coming into a bit of form. Obviously, we are delighted to be getting another competitive game next week and that’ll bring us closer to the championship.

“We’ve been keeping the heads down and taking it one game at a time, but now we are really glad to be in it.”