Dublin overcome Galway after extra time to secure All-Ireland ladies football final showdown with Meath

A golden generation of Galway footballers has known any number of agonising hard luck stories in recent years, but none will haunt them as much as this.

Hannah Tyrrell scores her side's first goal, from a penalty, during the TG4 All-Ireland Ladies Football Senior Championship semi-final. Pic: Piaras Ó Mídheach/Sportsfile

TG4 LGFA All-Ireland semi-final: Dublin 3-14 Galway 2-14 (after extra-time)

Carla Rowe’s audacious flick for a decisive goal at the start of the second half of extra-time will be the clip that will go viral during the week, but it was Hannah Tyrrell’s composure under pressure that was the single-most significant play in Dublin’s return to an All-Ireland final.

A golden generation of Galway footballers has known any number of agonising hard luck stories in recent years, but none will haunt them as much as their inability to manage possession with a one-point lead and 60 seconds left on the clock at the end of normal time.

All evening, sloppy handpassing had been the westerners’ weak point. Their bravery and endeavour meant that they prevented plenty of inaccurate passes from becoming turnovers, but Dublin did pick up a fair share of their possession from unforced errors, and that made Galway’s decision to try and keep the ball a risky one.

They gave away one possession and then their second saw Aoife Molloy surrounded and then pinged for overcarrying, with time almost expired.

Tyrrell’s free would have been a two-pointer in the men’s game, but splitting the uprights from over 40 metres out was invaluable, as it sent the contest into overtime at 1-10 to 0-13, and it was only then that Dublin finally looked like the better team.

Galway played with the breeze for the first ten minutes but only got one Olivia Divilly point in that period, while Dublin kicked three.

Rowe’s flamboyant finish made it 2-13 to 0-14, and a third goal from Kate Sullivan seemed to kill off the game, only for consecutive green flags from Andrea Trill and Divilly to leave 40 seconds of tension at the end.

It wasn’t just the closing minute of normal time that Galway will regret however. They also had the breeze in the first half-hour, but a string of missed goal chances meant that they were only level at the interval, 0-9 to 1-6.

Olivia Divilly, Kate Geraghty and Nicola Ward all went well for the Connacht county but on another day, Kate Slevin could have had two goals instead of a single point and Louise Ward hit the crossbar, albeit Dublin also struck woodwork through Nicole Owens.

Dublin managed the play well however, taking chunks of time off the clock for each attack at a time when anything more than 30 metres from goal was outside of scoring range.

Rowe kicked two good points and Caoimhe O’Connor was devastatingly effective, winning a penalty which Tyrrell converted, and leading the race for player of the match before she went down injured shortly before half-time.

Perhaps due to the absence of O’Connor and perhaps due to the natural balance between two teams that also needed 80 minutes to separate them in a quarter-final last year, Dublin failed to exploit the breeze and in a tense encounter that was high on tempo but also high on error count, it wasn’t until Kate Sullivan hooked a shot over the bar with her right foot in the 45th minute that a score was registered in the second half.

Neither side shot a wide in the first half while Dublin had three after the break, meaning the contest was still finely poised going into the closing minutes, 1-9 to 0-12.

Andrea Trill came off the bench to score what could have been the winner with her first involvement, but the little bit of composure that Galway lacked to see things out, Tyrrell showed in spades with her season-transforming free kick.

Scorers for Dublin: H Tyrrell (1-6, 0-5f, 1-0 pen), C Rowe (1-2), K Sullivan (1-1), N Hetherton (0-2), S Goldrick (0-1), O Nolan (0-1), S McIntyre (0-1).

Scorers for Galway: O Divilly (1-3), R Leonard (0-5, 0-4f), A Trill (1-1), E Noone (0-3, 0-1f), K Slevin (0-2, 0-1f).

DUBLIN: A Shiels; J Tobin, L Caffrey, N Crowley; M Byrne, N Donlon, H McGinnis; É O’Dowd, N Hetherton; C O’Connor, S Goldrick, N Owens; H Tyrrell, C Rowe, K Sullivan.

Subs: O Nolan for O’Connor (27), L Grendon for Rowe (39), S McIntyre for Owens (47), Rowe for Hetherton (52), Hetherton for McGinnis (full-time), A Kane for Byrne (73), H Leahy for Donlon (74), C Darby for Rowe (76), A Timothy for Sullivan (76).

GALWAY: D Gower; K Geraghty, C Trill, B Quinn; H Noone, N Ward, A Molloy; L Ward, S Divilly; N Divilly, O Divilly, A Davoren; E Noone, R Leonard, K Slevin.

Subs: L Noone for N Divilly (half-time), K Thompson for Leonard (41), L Coen for Davoren (50), A Trill for Slevin (57), M Glynn for S Divilly (70), M Banek for Quinn (h-t in e-t), Davoren for Coen (h-t in e-t), Slevin for L Noone (h-t in e-t), C Cooney for Molloy (75), S Lynch for Banek (77).

Referee: Seamus Mulvihill (Kerry).