Joyce's Galway reign finally ignites
24 April 2022; Galway manager Padraic Joyce, left, and selector John Concannon celebrate at the final whistle of the Connacht GAA Football Senior Championship Quarter-Final match between Mayo and Galway at Hastings Insurance MacHale Park in Castlebar, Mayo. Photo by Brendan Moran/Sportsfile
A first championship win over Mayo for Pádraic Joyce, but far more importantly, a lifeline for the up-to-yesterday embattled Galway manager.
The scenes of intense jubilation among the Galway management that greeted David Coldrick’s final whistle went beyond the storied Galway-Mayo rivalry, went way beyond the securing of a handy run to the Connacht final.
This is season three of Joyce’s reign, a tenure that has overseen several more low points - three successive defeats to Mayo by an aggregate total of 22 points and last season’s most avoidable League relegation to Division 2 - than high ones.
In that context, yesterday was a must-win fixture in what is a must-succeed summer for the Galway boss.
But at half-time in Castlebar, this Connacht quarter-final looked to be heading in only one direction, and it wasn’t down a road that would secure Galway a home semi-final against Leitrim in a fortnight.
The visitors' construction of a 1-4 to 0-2 lead inside 11 minutes had been aggressively dismantled by their hosts who outscored Galway 0-7 to 0-2 from there to half-time. And although the scoreboard showed the sides level at the break, 1-6 to 0-9, there was no question but Mayo were in the ascendancy.
As 14-man Galway stuttered and struggled during Finnian Ó Laoí’s 10 minutes in the bin approaching the half-hour mark, Mayo squeezed their opponents’ short restarts and routinely bullied them out of possession further out the field.
Indeed, were it not for a Cillian O’Connor missed free and a Jason Doherty goal effort blocked by Liam Silke late in the first half, the latter opportunity arriving from a Matthew Ruane forced turnover, Mayo would have gone in four in front and there was nobody in the 24,557-strong crowd that would have argued the merits of such a Mayo advantage.
The question is did the Mayo players also get a whiff of the inevitability that hung over this Connacht quarter-final at half-time for their second-half effort could not have been flatter nor more error-ridden.
Aidan O’Shea’s fetching of a Connor Gleeson Galway restart on 37 minutes ended with a Jason Carr point that nudged the hosts in front for the first -and last - time. For instead of building on this lead and the momentum generated during a second quarter they owned, Mayo descended into wastefulness and dreadful shot selection.
Twenty-two minutes they went without adding to their tally, during which the men in maroon took them for six on the spin to surge 1-12 to 0-10 clear.
A definite factor in Mayo’s sliding intensity at the outset of this barren spell was the loss of Oisín Mullin through injury, further weakening a back seven already operating without Rob Hennelly and Paddy Durcan.
“It definitely did,” replied James Horan when asked if the Mullin hamstring injury had taken wind from their sails.
“It went a bit flat and we were struggling to generate anything during that period. We had 17 chances in the second half and we kicked seven, you're not going to win anything with that so we got what we deserved.”
In total, Mayo registered 12 wides to Galway’s three, the last of Mayo’s eight second-half wides a low percentage equalising attempt taken on by sub Aidan Orme in the fifth and final minute of injury-time.
Had the effort been successful, it would have represented a sixth Mayo point on the bounce and, in the process, completed a remarkable comeback from a position of having trailed 1-14 to 0-11 as late as the 68th minute.
Outside of this textbook late Mayo rally, Horan’s side lacked a sufficient amount of attacking weapons to hurt Galway. Bar Ryan O’Donoghue, no other forward inflicted damage on the scoreboard.
Last year’s All-Ireland finalists now have six weeks to pick up the pieces before they enter the qualifiers, a period that will at least allow for old and fresh injuries to abate.
For Galway, the focus going forward has to be on replicating for longer spells a flamethrowing third quarter where they cut out the concession of unnecessary frees at the back and ran straight down the throat of the Mayo defence.
Kieran Molloy, Shane Walsh (with three monstrous placed-ball kicks), sub Cillian McDaid, and the outstanding Paul Conroy reeled off six-in-a-row to shove the Tribes five clear. Mention too of Damien Comer who delivered an all-action second-half performance.
A Cillian O’Connor free briefly interrupted Galway’s assertive march to victory, but two more from Conroy and goal-scorer Johnny Heaney provided Joyce’s troops with a six-point buffer that proved just sizeable enough in the face of Mayo’s late charge.
Two and a half years in, Joyce’s reign is finally motoring towards something meaningful.
S Walsh (0-5, 0-2 frees, 0-2 ‘45s); J Heaney (1-1); P Conroy (0-3); K Molloy, N Daly, R Finnerty, D Comer, C McDaid (0-1 each).
C O’Connor (0-6, 0-6 frees); R O’Donoghue (0-4, 0-1 mark); J Carr (0-2); L Keegan, E McLaughlin, K McLoughlin, D O’Connor (0-1 each).
C Gleeson; J Glynn, S Kelly L Silke; D McHugh, J Daly, K Molloy; P Conroy, M Tierney; F Ó Laoí, N Daly, J Heaney; R Finnerty, D Comer, S Walsh.
Patrick Kelly for Daly (HT); C McDaid for Ó Laoí (46); D Conneely for Finnerty (49); Paul Kelly for Tierney (65); J McGrath for Glynn (66).
R Byrne; O Mullin, L Keegan, P O’Hora; S Coen, M Plunkett, E McLaughlin; A O’Shea, M Ruane; D O’Connor, J Doherty, C Loftus; R O’Donoghue, C O’Connor J Carr.
E Hession for Mullin (39 mins, inj); A Orme for Doherty (49); J Carney for Loftus (58); K McLoughlin for Coen (63); D McHale for Carr (67).
D Coldrick (Meath).
ENDS
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