Westmeath 1-12 Galway 4-27
Galway had their expected big win against Westmeath in Mullingar on Sunday afternoon, running out the victors by 24 points.
The Tribesmen were three points to the good in as many minutes courtesy of Cianan Fahy, Brian Concannon and Liam Collins, and they were 0-5 to 0-0 up before their opponents struck for a hat-trick of unanswered points from the sticks of Jack Galvin, Kevin Regan, and Niall O’Brien (a free).
Westmeath’s fourth point came from former Galway player Davy Glennon, whose brother Ronan lined out for the winners, and they led by 0-10 to 0-4 when the home side scored the first goal of the game, Ciarán Doyle doing well to get in a one-handed strike in the 28th minute.
It was 0-12 to 1-4 in Galway’s favour when Concannon rifled home a great goal from a tight angle with exactly 35 minutes on the clock. With Conor Cooney bagging four points from play in the first half and Evan Niland converting six placed balls (including a ninth-minute 65), Henry Shefflin’s troops led by 1-14 to 1-5 at the interval.
A classy point from play by O’Brien was an encouraging start to the second half for Westmeath, but Galway were always able to pick off points when needed.
Indeed, they ended up with 13 different scorers on the day. Despite the home team scoring four unanswered points between the 48th and 55th minutes, Galway still led by 1-19 to 1-11 when sub Declan McLoughlin availed of one of many unforced Westmeath errors to rifle the ball past Conor Bracken in the 59th minute.
Galway scored the last 2-7 of the contest without reply from the outclassed home team. The two goals came with time almost up courtesy of Jason Flynn and Tiernan Killeen, and Gavin Lee still had time to score a last-gasp point.
WESTMEATH: C Bracken; G Greville, J Bermingham, C Shaw; A Craig, T Doyle, R Greville; J Galvin (0-1), S McGovern; K Regan (0-1), C Doyle (1-4, one free), E Keyes; N O’Brien (0-5, four frees), S Clavin, D Glennon (0-1).
Subs: D Egerton for T Doyle (inj, 8 mins), J Gillen for O’Brien (inj, 52), P Clarke for Glennon (59), M Cunningham for McGovern, C Boyle for Bermingham (both 67), P Maxwell for Galvin (70).
GALWAY: E Murphy; D Morrissey, D Burke, TJ Brennan (0-1); P Mannion (0-1), J Fitzpatrick, T Killeen (1-0); C Fahy (0-1), R Glennon; John Cooney (0-2), L Collins (0-1), C Cooney (0-5); E Niland (0-11, eight frees, one 65), B Concannon (1-1), K Cooney (0-1).
Subs: D McLoughlin (1-1) for Collins (46 mins), J Flynn (1-1) for C Cooney (54), G Lee (0-1) for John Cooney, Joseph Cooney for Glennon (both 63), D O’Shea for Concannon (65), M McManus for McLoughlin (blood, 70+1).
Referee: K Jordan (Tipperary).
