Galway see life through Ros tinted glasses
All Ireland SFC quarter-final:
Galway 0-14 Roscommon 1-5
From Staff Reporter
PERHAPS we’ve been reading Galway back to front. This cruel Castlebar cancellation of Roscommon’s post-Connacht title delusions of grandeur certainly suggests that the virtues which have carried the Tribesmen into the last four for the third time in four years are not those of the popular imagination.
Conventional wisdom has it that Galway have flakey backs, an inconsistent midfield and gifted forwards who carry the team through. Actually Galway are, at the moment, a very different proposition.
Their defensive frailties were exposed in Tuam by Roscommon but the restructured defence has since conceded a miserly average of eleven points in matches against Cork, Armagh and Roscommon – none of them slouches on the attacking front.
On Saturday the defence exerted a stranglehold over Roscommon. In particular we saw the lethal consequences of a blue chip half-back line clashing with a half-forward unit of no particular distinction. Declan Meehan, Tomas Mannion and the superb Sean Og De Paor were so dominant that a genuinely dangerous Roscommon full-forward line found themselves cut off from the game.
The midfield question marks have been dispelled too. Seamus O’Neill and Fergal O’Donnell are no mean duo but they were outclassed by Michael Donnellan and Kevin Walsh. Donnellan was magnificent, answering those strange doubts about his suitability for a midfield role.
Where else do you situate a player whose range of skills mean he can shine in any part of the field? Walsh gave his best performance since the 1998 Championship and kept going for seventy minutes.
Oddly, it’s the Galway attack which may be giving John O’Mahony cause for concern. True, Derek Savage was brilliant at corner-forward, contributing to most of his side’s scores and Joe Bergin gave a fine driving performance at wing-forward, but none of their colleagues scored from play.
It was this frittering tendency which flattered Roscommon on the scoreboard when a winning margin of twice the size would hardly have been untrue to the match.
Roscommon, to put it bluntly, didn’t seem to belong in this company. They scored just once in the opening period – a fine third minute point from their best player Francie Grehan – and looked totally outclassed.
Galway built an early 0-4 to 0-1 lead and as the half wore on the Tribesmen’s intricate build-ups carved Roscommon apart with increasing ease. Donnellan landed a great point from fifty yards, a passing move of bewildering complexity set Walsh free for a point and the half was rounded off with a well deserved point for Bergin which gave his team a 0-9 to 0-1 lead.
In the second period Donnellan, fittingly, served notice that the fairytale ending had been superceded by one of bleak realism for Roscommon when he powered forward for a fine individual point nine minutes into the half.
When De Paor did likewise ten minutes later it underlined the huge impact numbers five, six and seven had on this match
.
Roscommon’s admirably vociferous fans finally got something to cheer about ten minutes from time when Gerry Lohan’s powerful run down the middle gave lively sub Jonathon Dunning the chance to fire a powerful low shot to the net. But we were just talking about consolation scores at this stage. Padraig Joyce rounded off the scoring with a free after a foul on Savage.
Roscommon might end 2001 as Connacht Champions but no-one will now have any doubt about the identity of the real best in the West.
back to menu