Donoghue non-committal on Galway future after ‘devastating’ early exit
Micheál Donoghue has another year to run on his management deal with Galway but after this who can say what the future holds.
The 2017 All-Ireland winning manager won’t be shoved out after all he’s won — two Leinster titles and a National League too — but whether he has the heart to go again for a fifth season is another matter.
He gave no inclination either way about his 2020 plans immediately after
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“That’s sport,” shrugged Donoghue after being nudged into fourth position on scoring difference.
We’re obviously bitterly, bitterly disappointed. But I’ve said it umpteen times — I’m so proud of these lads. They worked really hard and you have to give huge credit to Dublin.
Goals win games and they got them at the right times. The penalty they got after half-time came (at the right time) but we responded to it well and held them for a while after that. But then they got another one and as I say, goals win matches.
In 26 league and Championship games since winning the All-Ireland in 2017, Galway have won 16, losing six and drawing four more.
They still started this summer as favourites with one bookmaker to win the All-Ireland but laboured past Carlow and then drew with Wexford.
They hoped the thrilling and historic win over Kilkenny at Nowlan Park would ignite their summer but Dublin had other ideas.
Asked if hey felt hard done by this season with injuries to key players like Joe Canning, and results like the Wexford/Kilkenny outcome conspiring against them, Donoghue shook his head.
“We knew the permutations coming into it,” he said. “Obviously we’re devastated with the outcome, the fact that we lost and that the other game was a draw but that was outside our control. As I said, I’m just immensely proud of the lads, they worked hard and kept at it. It’s a tough one to take but that’s what we have to do.”
Donoghue said he anticipated an epic battle approaching the game with plenty of history between these groups of Galway and Dublin players who have come to blows in the past.
“We knew coming up that it was going to be a really tough battle,” he said.
Dublin have made massive strides, Mattie is doing a fantastic job with them. At half-time, I thought we were doing okay, working well, responding well. But we probably never got into a massive, massive flow that we probably needed to really impose ourselves.
Donoghue agreed that it wasn’t that sort of game where one team could pull away and assert their authority. No, it wasn’t but I still thought we responded every time they threw something at us,” he said. “But ultimately when they got those goals in the second-half, that was it.”
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