Antrim 0-11: Galway 0-10:IT WAS the latest in a long line of catastrophes for Galway football. They may have won the All-Ireland in 2001 via the back-door route but the qualifiers have been a nightmare for the county pretty much ever since.
On Saturday at Casement Park, Antrim became the latest county to parade their scalp in front of a crowd of about 4,000. The win may have come in dramatic circumstances, with two injury-time points from Tomas McCann and substitute Deaghlan O’Hagan, but this latest setback for Galway football was of their own making.
Antrim played with purpose and, more importantly, a game plan. The players knew what they were doing and they stuck to it.
The same, unfortunately, could not be said of Galway, whose winless streak in the All-Ireland qualifiers now stretches back to 2004. With the exception of Meath in 2007, the rest of their defeats have all been by a single point.
Alan Mulholland had no explanations. “We always knew it would be difficult,’’ he said. “A lot of people underestimated them but we knew what we were getting into here. I have no problems with the players or the way they played.
“I think the performance was much better today than against Sligo, we were more disciplined and organised. But we’ve still gone another year without beating a team outside of Connacht.’’
Mulholland suggested it was Antrim’s defensive strategy that made his side look slow and laborious, particularly in the first half.
Antrim did drop one forward, Mark Sweeney, as a sweeper in front of his full-back line, but there was still plenty of opportunity for Galway to penetrate if they had wanted it enough. With Sweeney playing so deep, Johnny Duane was a spare man for Galway but they used him poorly and he rarely pushed forward.
Michael Meehan, starting his first championship game of the year, was still some way off his best and missed three frees, with Paul Conroy missing another.
The sides were level nine times over the 70 minutes, Galway leading 0-5 to 0-4 at half-time.
A good burst from Antrim early in the second half saw them reel off three points from play, including a brace from midfielder Michael McCann, who dominated Joe Bergin.
Galway responded well with their best spell in the game, outscoring the home side by four points to one in a 15-minute period.
With Meehan off-colour and Seán Armstrong ineffective and withdrawn before half-time, that left it to old hand Pádraic Joyce to lead the way in the tense closing stages. Twice he gave Galway the lead in the last 10 minutes but they couldn’t hold on.
‘’We knew going in today that we weren’t going to be far away,’’ said jubilant Antrim boss Liam Bradley. “While people in other counties who were beaten in the first round were jumping on planes and going to Boston, we had 35 fellas training the following Tuesday after we lost to Monaghan. We always had the belief we could go far in the qualifiers.’’
ANTRIM:C Kerry; K O'Boyle, R Johnston, J Crozier; A Healey, T Scullion, M Johnston; M McCann (0-3), C Kelly (0-1); J Loughrey (0-1), O Gallagher, C Murray; T McCann (0-4, two frees), K Niblock, M Sweeney. Subs: A Gallagher (0-1) for Kelly (20mins), M Magill for Gallagher (47mins), M Armstrong for Murray (67mins), D O'Hagan (0-1) for Healey (69mins).
GALWAY: A Faherty; K Kelly, F Hanley, J Duane; G Bradshaw, G O'Donnell (0-1), T Fahy; J Bergin, F O Curraoin; G Sice, S Armstrong, C Doherty (0-1); M Meehan (0-2, two frees), P Conroy (0-1), M Hehir (0-3, three frees). Subs: D Cummins for Armstrong (34 mins), T Flynn for Bergin (45 mins), K McGrath for Fahy (46), P Joyce (0-2, one free) for Hehir (60 mins), G Sweeney for Doherty (67mins).
Referee:Derek Fahy (Longford).
