CONNACHT SFC SEMI-FINAL: Sligo 1-14 Galway 0-16 THIS HAS been a championship during which the pretensions and shortcomings of many top-tier football teams have been exposed while other teams have quietly thrived.
It is time to take note of Sligo, about as honest a team as you could hope to see. Not content with sending Mayo’s summer into a tailspin, they executed a perfect guerrilla coup against the royalty of west of Ireland football on a heavy July Saturday night in Sligo town – 12,045 showed up to see it and got value for money.
In other years, reputation and the repressive old order would have been enough to guide Galway through this match. In the 69th minute, Niall Coleman struck an outrageous point for the visitors which followed a typical rapier’s score from the wonderful Pádraig Joyce.
Sligo could have given up the ghost here and settled for the honourable defeat. Instead, over three minutes of bedlam, they engineered three storming points from Kenneth Sweeney, the excellent Mark Breheny and Colm McGee.
Two of those players, Sweeney and McGee, had been named to start but replaced just before the throw-in. Their introduction in the last 10 minutes gave Sligo’s attack the fresh dimension that made the difference.
It wasn’t so much that Sligo won the match, it was the audacity with which they did so. The feeling in the ground during those three minutes of added-time evoked the sudden and perfectly-timed surge towards a sprint finish by Bernard Hinault or one of the master cyclists of yesteryear.
The scenes afterwards were incredible, Sligo fans stormed the pitch and celebrated with abandon while on the tanoy the announcer informed the Galway men – with considerable relish – that they had an appointment in the qualifiers with Wexford in Pearse Stadium on Saturday.
It must have been bewildering news for the losing team to get their heads around. Afterwards Kevin Walsh kept it cool and gave his craftiest Templemore smile when asked how Sligo would cope with being favourites for the Connacht final.
“I don’t know because we haven’t been in that situation before. We just had to ignore what people thought of us and see how we could react when Galway went ahead of us today and we had to believe in ourselves for the full 70 minutes of the match.”
Sligo fell 0-8 to 0-4 behind after 27 minutes when the Galway forwards were whistling points over the bar with ease. They were at sea for a while in that first period, hanging in there through a marvellous point from David Kelly and a few last-gasp interventions from Ross Donovan, who seemed to pop up all over the field, and Charlie Harrison, whose clever play on the right wing is always a treat to watch. But in the second half they rattled the Galway men. If they got a lucky break, it was in the goal, which David Kelly converted after stepping in to collect a shocking pass from Gareth Bradshaw to his goalkeeper.
That levelled the score at 1-6 to 0-9 and Bradshaw, who engaged in a robust physical and verbal debate with Eamonn O’Hara all evening, atoned by bulldozing up the field and winning the free which Seán Armstrong popped over.
In fact, Galway quickly regained a three-point lead and, with Joyce the main threat, always seemed to have a ready answer for Sligo. They lost Michael Meehan to a fresh injury after half-time and apart from Matthew Clancy were increasingly eclipsed by the Sligo’s feisty ball-winners around the cluttered midfield section.
On a warm, drizzly evening, the free count was high and some of the hits ferocious: substitute David Reilly did well to stand up and play on after turning into a whopping belt., To dally in possession was fatal in this game. The critical period of the match seemed to be during the 55th and 65th minutes when Sligo were flying, swooping on all broken balls and driving at Galway but crucially failing to score, firing three rash wides.
Those failures often kill the belief in teams and when Galway kept their advantage to two points, the smart money was on their narrow survival and the same old story. But Sligo had other ideas.
Think back to their unlucky defeat to Kerry in Tralee a year ago and their form line under Walsh is easily traced. They are organised, with a tough, veteran centre back in Brendan Phillips, quality forwards like Kelly and Mark Breheony, a solid midfield and fine all rounders in Harrison, Johnny Davey and Donovan, who drive the attack from the deep.
For Joe Kernan, this is a considerable setback but the Galway manager has seen enough football matches to feel that sometimes the result isn’t everything.
“I was very proud of the effort our boys gave and I felt we lost out in a terrific game of football for neutrals. The boys are bitterly disappointed in there but that can be a good thing. It means they care and we just have to pick ourselves up for the next day. I thought we might have done enough.
“Seán Armstrong was through there with a couple of minutes to go and took his point, which was probably the right option but if he had goaled there, that would have been that. But you have to give credit to Sligo, they hit us on the break with three great scores.”
Sligo march on, afraid of nothing or no one anymore.
SLIGO:P Greene; C Harrison, N McGuire, R Donovan; K Cawley (0-1), B Philips, J Davey; E Mullen, S Gilmartin; A Costello, M Breheny (0-4, three frees), E O'Hara; S Coen, A Marren (0-3, two frees), D Kelly (1-3). Subs: C McGee (0-2) for Coen (55 mins), S Davey for Costello (60 mins), K Sweeney (0-1) for O'Hara (66 mins).
GALWAY:A Faherty; K Fitzgerald, F Hanley, A Burke; G Bradshaw (0-1), D Blake, G O'Donnell (0-1); J Bergin (0-1), N Coleman (0-1); G Sice, S Armstrong (0-4, two frees), M Clancy (0-1); E Concannon (0-1), P Joyce (0-5, three frees), M Meehan (0-1, 50). Subs: P Conroy for M Meehan (37 mins, inj.), D Reilly for F Hanley (49 mins, inj).
Referee:M Deegan (Laois).
