Galway strike with victory in Derry

DERRY 1-11 GALWAY 1-15

Galway laid down a marker for the 2012 season with an impressive Allianz Football League victory over hosts Derry at Celtic Park.

In Alan Mulholland’s first Division 2 game as Galway boss, his young side showed their potential in rounding off a deserved away win.

Considering that they are missing the mercurial attacking talents of Padraic Joyce and an injury-jinxed Michael Meehan, this was quite a performance from the Tribesmen. A number of their Under-21 players really stepped up to the plate.

All-Star forward Paddy Bradley captained Derry, making a welcome return to league action after his recovery from a knee injury.

And when Bradley’s 17th-minute effort was held up by the wind, Cailean O’Boyle managed to rise highest and fist the ball into the Galway net.

But the westerners responded strongly with defender Garreth Bradshaw sidestepping past goalkeeper Danny Devlin to slot home their only goal.

Bradshaw completed a terrific move which included some excellent passing from Paul Conroy and Gary O’Donnell, helping his side move 1-8 to 1-4 ahead for half-time.

The second quarter marked a serious purple patch for Galway, who outscored Derry by 1-05 to 0-01 during that spell and put an inexperienced full-back line of Brian McCallion, Liam Morrow and Ryan Dillon under constant pressure.

O’Boyle, Chrissy McKaigue and Mark Lynch all pointed to reduce the arrears to the minimum and set up a grandstand finish, with net minder Devlin also converting a ‘45’.

However, Galway showed plenty of mettle and with young forward Michael Martin finding his range, allied to scores from Joe Bergin and a lively Nicky Joyce, Mulholland’s charges were not to be denied.

Milltown clubman Martin stood out among the visiting forwards, scoring 0-5 in all, as Derry failed to sort out their defensive issues despite a lengthy half-time team talk from manager John Brennan.