Relentless Down give Galway huge test but experience sees Pádraic Joyce’s contenders through

All-Ireland SFC preliminary quarter-final: Down 3-21 Galway 2-26

Another Sunday, another stone-cold thriller. Down gave Galway their bellyful it here, chasing Padraic Joyce’s side manfully and relentlessly right to the very last drop. They came up short, mostly because they’ll be playing Division 3 football next year while Galway are a top table side and have been for a while. On the evidence of this summer, it won’t be too long before Down grab themselves a seat too.

Conor Laverty’s team are a world removed from where they were when he took over in late 2022. Back then, they hadn’t won a game for a year and the traffic at the dressingroom door was flowing out rather than in. A world where they would run a credible All-Ireland contender like Galway to two points must have seemed beyond fanciful back then.

“I wasn’t coming here hoping that Down would play well,” Laverty said afterwards. “I came here with a massive belief that these players could perform at this level and that this is the standard we want to be playing at. But what we did talk to the players about was, do you want to be coming here to Páirc Esler to be playing a preliminary quarter-final in front of 14,000 people?

“Or would you rather be playing ... I came to a league match here against Clare one year and there wasn’t 150 people at it. Or Tailteann Cup games where there were only a couple of hundred people there. This is where players want to be. We would have felt that in games this year, it’s been experience that has held us back slightly in key moments.”

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Down's Pierce Laverty in action against Galway's John Maher. Photograph: James Lawlor/Inpho

Ultimately, that was probably Galway’s thumb on the scale here. When the stadium was bubbling midway through the second half as Down dominated midfield, Joyce was able to bring Peter Cooke in off the bench. Cooke has been a here-again-gone-again presence for Galway down the years but he made his debut in 2016 so he knows the road. He was able to steer Galway home.

Cooke caught a world of ball, scored a point and laid on the sealing goal for Tomó Culhane. All of which meant that brave and all as Down had been, the home side were never able to cut the margin below two points. “We were battle-hardened before today but we’re battle-hardened again,” was Joyce’s take on it all.

And so they were. Though Cooke saw them through the endgame, Galway were in position thanks in the main to a couple of effervescent displays from Matthew Thompson and Shane Walsh. Thompson in particular looks like a nailed-on Young Footballer of the Year, pulling the strings out the pitch year like someone with a decade under his belt rather than just a few months.

Walsh popped up with 1-7 in the first half, including three two-pointers and a goal that oozed class. In the space of two minutes just before half-time, he landed a two-pointer from play, laid on a goal for Rob Finnerty, skinned Ceilum Doherty for a one-pointer, then caught the kickout and drove on to draw a foul outside the arc, which he duly converted.

Seán Fitzgerald in action for Galway. Photograph: James Lawlor/Inpho

He got injured in the process, landing on his shoulder, and barely had a kick after half-time before being taken off. “He got a nasty injury,” Joyce said. “He fell forward and the Down player followed through with the knee on the shoulder so he’s in a bit of a bother there with the shoulder.”

That burst just before half-time looked like it had put the game out of reach for Down. They went from being just a point behind in the 28th minute to going in at the break on the thick end of a 1-16 to 1-6 scoreline. Even though there was a stiff breeze blowing straight down the ground, it still looked fairly insurmountable for Laverty’s side.

But Down didn’t take a backward step. They had a couple of two-pointers on the board within 69 seconds of the restart. Odhran Murdock was phenomenal, the 22-year-old Down captain running in 1-2 from midfield and pushing his side forward at every opportunity. Caolan Mooney rolled back the years off the bench, whistling through for back-to-back points to make it 1-20 to 1-18 with a quarter-hour to go.

Galway were rocking now, their kickout in such peril that Joyce had replacement goalkeeper Connor Gleeson warming up a couple of times. But gradually they got a foothold around the middle again, with Cooke and Cein D’Arcy settling them. When Cooke put Culhane away in the 65th minute, the Galway sub iced the game. It was tough on Down goalkeeper Ronan Burns who had made a string of brilliant saves but wasn’t quite up to this one. Down’s day in microcosm.

They gave Galway a huge test here. Expect it to stand to both of them.

DOWN: R Burns; P McCarthy, P Fegan, C Doherty (0-0-1); R Magill (1-0-0), P Laverty, M Rooney (0-1-0); D Guinness (0-2-0), R McEvoy (0-1-0); D Magill (0-0-2), O Murdock (1-0-2), A Crimmins (0-0-1, 1f); J Guinness (0-0-1), P Havern (0-0-2, 2f), J McGeough (1-0-1).

Subs: E Branagan (0-0-1) for McCarthy (21-26 mins, blood); Branagan for McCarthy (h-t); C Mooney (0-0-2) for McGeough (55); O Savage for Doherty (57); C McCrickard for Crimmins (62); F Murdock for Rooney (66).

GALWAY: C Flaherty; J McGrath, S Fitzgerald, L Silke; D McHugh, S Kelly, C Hernon; P Conroy, J Maher; C Darcy (0-0-1), M Tierney (0-0-2), C McDaid (0-0-2); R Finnerty (0-1-4, 1f), S Walsh (1-3-1, 2tpf), M Thompson (0-1-3).

Subs: P Cooke (0-0-1) for Conroy (48 mins); D O’Flaherty (0-0-2) for Hernon (57); J Heaney for McDaid (61-69, temp); T Culhane (1-0-0) for Walsh (62); J Daly for Maher (67).

Referee: D O’Mahoney (Tipperary).