Ladies' day falls short but Galway do enough to get over the line
CHAMPIONS: Galway Captain Kate Geraghty lifts the Brendan Martin Cup along with her teammates following victory over Kerry in the TG4 All-Ireland SFC final at Croke Park in Dublin. Pic: Seb Daly/Sportsfile
Nothing to talk about. Then everything to talk about.
The temptation is to get swept up in the final minutes. The temptation is to narrow focus onto Leanne’s Coen goal, Eva Noone’s winner, Síofra O’Shea’s chalked-off equaliser, Maggie Farrelly calling back the play when she did, the two-point free to win it, and the square ball goal that didn’t win it.
The temptation is to feast on the chaos of the closing scenes and ignore the terrible fare that came before.
The picture of the day is not the thrilling last six minutes. The full picture is much broader, much bittier, and of a much lower bar.
Sunday was the Ladies Football showpiece. Sunday was visual evidence of how the game has suffered for the drain of talent to Australia.
Leanne Coen’s two green flags didn’t just save Galway. Only for her two outstanding pieces of skill, there’d be no neat social media package to rival Niamh McLaughlin’s stunning toe-poke finish at the North Sydney Oval a day earlier.
On the physicality front, there was nothing at all to rival Vikki Wall’s viral shoulder challenge on Australia’s Ella Roberts. For while the new rules do allow for increased physicality and aggression in the tackle, neither were prominent here.
This was a decider, up until the seven scores of the last 11 minutes and 10 seconds, that was error-strewn, mundane, and ultimately sub-standard.
We genuinely did a double take when Kerry boss Mark Bourke labelled the hour a “great spectacle” during his post-match interview.
The lowest scoring final in six years was the worst attended final in 13 years. Long gone are the days of Dáithí Ó Sé and his shiny envelope engaging in a dramatic attendance reveal at half-time in the senior final.
Here, we didn’t even get an attendance announcement. The 26,471 figure - almost 22,000 down on the Dublin-Meath crowd 12 months ago - was passed on, following request, after full-time.
With the wind at their backs in the opening half, Galway squandered 10 of their 15 chances. The breakdown: four wide, three short, and three more blocked. There were over nine second-half minutes played when the Tribeswomen managed a first shot of the second period. The woeful conversation rate duly stretched out to five from 16 efforts.
Already before that we had a Síofra O'Shea free, from 20 metres out and just to the right of the Davin End goals, come inexcusably back off the post.
Two scores, one on either side, is all that graced the opening 18 minutes of the second half.
The arc was there to be ignored. Síofra O’Shea’s free, 21 seconds from the final hooter, was the first instance all afternoon of a player taking aim from outside the 40-metre paint.
“The two teams were so equal that it's just so hard to… There were some really obvious turnovers for both sides that made the scoreline maybe the way it was. It was never going to be a 1-16 game here today. It was never going to be a 2-14. So 12 scores to nine is how it finished up. So, it shows it was a real championship game,” surmised the beaten Kerry boss.
We’ve reached the point in the road where it becomes obligatory to state that Galway don’t give a single damn for any of the above.
This is a group that was accused of being all silk and no steel. Beautiful with ball in hand, brittle upstairs. Didn’t possess the necessary mental strength. Not for Sundays such as this anyway.
Retired Dublin forward Hannah Tyrrell, on the run in to the decider, stated that Galway have the ability but had never shown the required mettle.
It was Tyrrell who nailed the equalising free in last year’s All-Ireland semi-final after the women in maroon unsuccessfully tried to play keep ball in the closing 90 seconds. The Dubs overpowered them in extra-time.
It was a game, said Tyrrell’s former Dublin manager Mick Bohan last week, where Galway were the better team for the regulation hour but showed themselves incapable of seeing out the job.
This character profile of Galway was put to manager Daniel Moynihan, by the Irish Examiner, post-match. Had they shown the mettle they weren’t meant to be in possession of?
“A lot of the commentary around Galway this week has been a little bit disappointing, if I'm honest,” he replied.
“I think we've built a team, and it hasn't been the case that this team has been together for the last ten years and have failed and crumbled. We've been building for these three years.
“We've had a choppy, changey situation in Galway with managers and we finally got a settled group, along with a settled management, and this was kind of building blocks for us, getting to year three.
“We've shown mettle in other games. Once one person throws out their narrative of, 'Jesus, are they're mentally weak?', other people just jump on that as well and it adds to it, and I felt that was the case this week in particular.
“But what you've seen out there today is that we're capable of getting over the line.”
There were two minutes and one second remaining when Kerry swept past the Galway 65-metre line in search of an equaliser. The desperate maroon rearguard didn’t allow a Kerry shot until O’Shea stroked over with 52 seconds remaining. Galway players, though, paid no heed to the shot or score as Farrelly had long called back the play for an earlier foul on Róisín Rahilly.
An O’Shea two-pointer and Kerry would be two clear at the head of the roll of honour.
“I was afraid it was going to happen again,” said Galway captain Kate Geraghty in reference to Tyrrell’s free of 12 months earlier.
O’Shea thought her green flag had stood. She floated to the halfway line when cruel reality intervened.
The rulebook is clear. No player can be in the square before the ball arrives. Kerry were guilty of such. They were guilty of over-reliance on O’Shea and Niamh Ní Chonchúir for flags and direction.
Críoch dramatiúil anseo i bpáirc an Chrócaigh👀👀
— Spórt TG4 (@SportTG4) August 2, 2026
Galway are All Ireland champions !!!!!
60 Nóim@kerryladiesfoot 0-12 (12)@GalwayLgfa 2-07 (13)@ladiesfootball #PeilnamBan pic.twitter.com/LwcVaUQTPg
Each of Galway’s six starting forwards contributed. Nicola Ward delivered piercing directness from centre-back. Hannah Noone dovetailed superbly with younger sister Eva from first involvement to match-winning score.
The pair, along with eldest sister Lynsey, were first to raise Brendan Martin after Geraghty’s oration. The three Divillys weren’t long behind.
Down towards the bottom of the steps, a crying Nicola Ward watched the magic unfold. Wrapped lovingly around her was the left arm of twin sister Louise. They'd been fronting up without this day for 12 and 13 years respectively.
Sisters and Kilkerrin-Clonberne were at the core of washing away 22 years of Galway ladies football teams coming up short.
They and Roscommon go back over the Shannon a week after Mayo. The west’s awake. The West won’t sleep 'til winter.
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