The Galway No.1 shirt and kickout requires stability and certainty, quickly

NUMBER 1?: Galway’s Conor Flaherty takes a kickout. Pic: ©INPHO/Bryan Keane

If Shane Walsh has not shaken off the shoulder injury picked up at Páirc Esler last Sunday, well then Galway boss Pádraic Joyce has an enforced change to make.

There’s no injury on the goalkeeping front and yet it is easy to make the argument of how there’s an enforced need to once again review their No.1 shirt.

That No.1 shirt has been unsure of its owner all summer. Connor Gleeson finished the League, Conor Flaherty started in New York for his championship debut. Gleeson returned for the Connacht semi-final on home soil and remained between the sticks all the way up to and including the season-saving stalemate away to Derry.

The following is what happened at Celtic Park on the first day of this month that contributed to Gleeson taking residence on the bench in the four weeks since.

Derry pressed on his restart from the off. His restart creaked under the pressure. Galway failed to retain five of his opening seven kickouts. From the five they lost, including two mid-range kicks, Derry raised three orange flags and one white. Less than halfway through the opening half and the Galway kickout had already been taken for 0-7.

The beginning of the second period was challenging too. Derry claimed two of the first four Galway kickouts and mined 1-1 in the process. And while a maroon 1-1 off the Galway restart later in the half had a neutralising effect, management saw enough, including a Gleeson free punted out over the sideline that ended in a Derry point, to give Flaherty his second championship start for the subsequent group fixture against Armagh.

The question now is: Did management see enough in Páirc Esler last Sunday to return Flaherty to the stand and Gleeson to the starting line-up?

In the second half against Down, the hosts won nine of Flaherty’s first 11 restarts. They were 10/18 in total for that second period. The hosts found a second-half 0-4 off Flaherty’s restart. A green flag save and three wides prevented Down finding another 1-3 from that same source.

“We gave away three or four in-a-row again and just didn’t go to our kickout routine that we should have gone to when the pressure was on. Put a few over the sideline. Disappointed with that,” Joyce said after the preliminary quarter-final win.

Twice in the second-half, Joyce called Gleeson down from the stand to warm-up. He clarified post-match that such was the strength of the wind Flaherty was kicking into, Gleeson’s greater distance meant he was considered for introduction.

On top of warming up Gleeson, the Galway management on more than one occasion went behind Flaherty’s goal to pass in comment and information to the under-pressure No.1.

At this stage of championship, argued James Horan, a management needs to be building up their goalkeeper, not having him see his rival for the jersey warming up and down the sideline.

“One thing you got to give 'keepers is confidence and assurance. If it’s doubt and going game-to-game changes, that doesn’t help anyone,” the former Mayo boss said on the Irish Examiner Gaelic football podcast this week.

“Plus, at this stage, your defence for your kickout strategy, they time their runs depending on the keeper that is there. One keeper might have a shorter run-up, might have a quicker or lower trajectory, or whatever it is. So all those things could be a little bit off if you are chopping and changing your 'keeper. You back one and you go with it, unless something goes horribly wrong.”

The stick or twist dilemma in front of Joyce has to be got right. And not just for their Sam Maguire ambitions next month. It has to be got right for this Sunday.

Opponents Meath, lest anyone forget, spoiled 13 of Stephen Cluxton’s 19 first-half kickouts in the Leinster semi-final shock.

For those who immediately make the counterargument that Cluxton was kicking into the wind, consider that when Cork goalkeeper Micheál Aodh Martin was kicking with the wind in the second half of the Cork-Meath Sam Maguire opener, the Royals won seven of Cork’s 14 restarts and engineered 0-5 off that possession.

The Galway No.1 shirt, the same as the Galway kickout, requires stability and certainty, and quickly.