Galway not stymied by past failures

Talk of history is all well and good for those of us sitting on the sidelines but, for those in the thick of it yesterday as five o’clock approached, there was no time or inclination to pause and contemplate the magnitude of it all.

Certainly not for the Galway players that strange cocktail of exhilaration mixed with fear as the last seconds dwindled away. For them, it was all about taking care of business until Fergal Horan blew his whistle and pulled the last of the shutters down.

“I remember hoping for the referee just to blow it up because I didn’t want the ball to come back down,” said the defender Pádraic Mannion. “We knew how dangerous they were there when the high ball was being landed in.