Electric Ireland All-Ireland Minor Football Championship semi-final:
Galway 2-12 Donegal 1-11
KICKING yourself is usually a bad thing, but Galway kicked themselves into their first minor final for nine years, deservedly denying Donegal a return to the decider.
The Connacht champions’ superior kick-passing contributed to a victory that probably should have been more convincing than the scoreboard suggests. Both their goals, from their inside-forward duo of Robert Finnerty and captain Dessie Conneely, came after long kicks which transformed defence into attack and stretched the Donegal rearguard beyond breaking point.
In contrast, Donegal’s kick-passing was rare and, when it did occur, often wayward. It was only in the closing stages that the Ulster champs began to deviate from their traditional hand-passing template, including pushing lanky joint-captain Jason McGee up to full-forward as a target man.
Having said that, their goal from wing-forward Enda McCormick, resulted from an energetic bout of hand-passing up the right-flank involving the Termon clubman and lively sweeper Peadar Mogan, before the former fairly rifled a right-foot rocket past Cormac Haslam.
The Galway goalkeeper did brilliantly, though, in the third of an eventual six mintues of added-time to stop Donegal coming close to forcing extra-time. First, he parried out a shot from Odhran McFadden-Ferry then, a second or two later, tipped a fierce effort from substitute Gary Molloy onto the bar and over.
That meant Donegal had opened and closed the scoring, but there was little doubt Galway were the better team on the day. The opening exchanges were somewhat misleading, Galway packing their defence, but Donegal pouring forward to work the first two scores, through an O’Donnell free and full-forward Eoghan McGettigan.
However, the old saying that ‘goals change games’ was proven correct once again as Galway’s opening score made a major difference to the mood of this match as early as the fifth minute.
A long kick in reached Conneely and, although he was tackled by his marker Mark Curran, the ball broke favourably for Finnerty and he fooled the keeper with his left-foot finish to the net.
That goal truly inspired the Tribe lads, who added five of the next six points, and could have had a second goal, only for Barry Goldrick to drag a low shot badly wide across the face of goal.
Donegal’s 13-minute scoring drought ended with two points inside the same minute, the 24th, one each from joint-captains Niall O’Donnell and McGee. Indeed, a well-worked injury-time point from the purposeful JD Boyle left just the goal between the teams at the break, a situation Donegal were probably content enough with.
However, although the second period remained tight, the Tir Chonaill team never managed to get any closer than that on the scoreboard and that goal gap only existed for a short time before Galway crucially doubled it with their second.
That nearly came as early as the second minute of the second-half but, although right wing-forward Finian O Laoi ran onto a hand-pass, he pulled his left-foot shot wide of the near post.
Matters might have been different, of course, if Donegal had found the net themselves and they also had a good chance to do so early in the second-half when the ball broke to O’Donnell, but his low shot was blocked by the legs of Haslam. McGee did convert the resultant ‘45’, but Galway then opened up a five-point gap with two quick scores, the second a beauty from Goldrick after a jinking run.
Mogan, who impressively linked defence and attack for Donegal, converted a couple of frees to raise his side’s hopes, but they were reduced significantly in the 51st minute.
Burly midfielder Cein D’Arcy belted the ball towards the right corner, Finnerty gathered it, then slipped full-back Aaron McCrea, before finding O Laoi, who sent in Conneely to dispatch a low finish.
Realising their situation was desperate, Donegal threw more bodies into attack and McCormick’s great goal halved their deficit. Galway, though, responded calmly, sub Ross Murphy notching a lovely left-foot point and Evan Murphy added a free.
Donegal threw everything at them after that, but the westerners were good value for their place in the final against either Kerry or Kildare.
MATCH STATS
Donegal: G Mulreany; S Ferry, A McCrea, M Curran; A Deeney, JD Boyle (0-1), A McLaughlin; J McGee (joint-capt.) (0-2, 0-1 ‘45’), K Gallagher; N Boyle, N O’Donnell (joint-capt.) (0-3, 0-1 free), E McCormick (1-0); P Mogan (0-2 frees), E McGettigan (0-2), O McFadden-Ferry; Subs: O Shiels for McLaughlin (25); S McGrath for N Boyle (38); B O’Donnell (for Ferry, black card, 41); G Molloy (0-1) for JD Boyle (45); D Lyons for McCrea (53); Black card: Ferry (40).
Galway: C Haslam; S Raftery, S Mulkerrin, E McFadden; A Quirke, E McDonagh, F Garvey (0-1); C D’Arcy, J Maher; F O Laoi, E Murphy (0-2, 0-1 free), R Forde; R Finnerty (1-5, 0-4 frees), D Conneely (capt.) (1-2, 0-2 frees), B Goldrick (0-1); Subs: R Murphy (0-1) for Maher (54).
Referee: J Hickey (Carlow).
