Galway 3-9 Derry 0-13: GALWAY DISPOSED of Derry with a smouldering, attacking performance that may have been their most complete exhibition of teamwork to date. Liam Sammon's men are breathing hard on a place in the league final while Derry, after a bright spring beginning, were taken to school here.
Paddy Crozier could have filled plenty of foolscap pages on the long coach ride back to the Oak Leaf county last night and, as he stood in the mild drizzle of Salthill, the visiting boss acknowledged that his team had been overrun where it mattered.
"We scored 13 times, Galway scored 12 times," he mused.
Goals count.
And how. But for the feline dexterity of the Limavady goalkeeper, John Deighan, Derry could have coughed up half a dozen goals here. The signs were ominous from the first minute when he somehow managed to get a paw on to Joe Bergin's low shot through traffic. After 26 minutes, Matthew Clancy was played through for a one-on-one chance by Micheál Meehan and blasted a shot that Deighan deflected over the bar.
Two minute later, he got his hands to Gary Sice's hammered effort. On 53 minutes, the Derry man denied Michael Meehan.
These were fine, reflex saves.
But there was no stopping the Galway goals. In the 17th minute, Fiachra Breathnach was hauled to the turf after a swift Galway counter attack and Meehan's penalty was perfect, hit low and with too much velocity to stop.
Pádraic Joyce's goal belongs to his lengthy inventory of outrageous scores. Again, it emanated from Meehan's clever assist pass. The Killererin man feinted to shoot right, turned on a dime and fired a brilliant left-foot shot to thrill the local crowd.
That left the score at 2-6 to 0-6 after 47 minutes.
And although Derry grimly stuck to the notion of taking something from the match, Galway always looked likely to conjure another big score. From the moment Liam Hinphey undercooked a pass out of defence, you could see the Galway attacking men align themselves for the incoming ball. This time, it was Nickey Joyce who played the ball for Matthew Clancy, who took it at speed and at the perfect angle.
Derry fans know all about Clancy and goals and the loyal travellers must have seen flashes of the All-Ireland semi-final of 2001 as Clancy delivered a cool and deadly finish across the face of the goal before wheeling away in celebration. "They could have scored another two or three only for John Deighan," nodded Crozier.
It was entirely appropriate that Clancy was the player to finish off that move. It would be interesting to clock the mileage that the Oughterard man clocks up in a match. He roved between the two half-back lines, working his socks off with no apparent fatigue.
He is flourishing under Sammon's creative reign and, along with Barry Cullinane, who was like a wrecking ball at midfield, Sice, Finian Hanley and Kieran Fitzgerald, he had an outstanding match. It must have pleased Sammon that Galway could post a significant score without any contribution from play from Meehan and with Joyce, the flamboyant strike aside, fairly subdued.
The return of Joe Bergin, with his play-anywhere facility, greatly deepens the options from Galway, with the tall man bouncing from forward to midfield. Equally, they could drop Declan Meehan from half forward to his customary half-back slot when the need arose.
Galway's smoothness around the field illuminated the troubles of the Northern men. From the beginning, they struggled to cope with the uninhibited attacking instinct of the Galway half-backs, Sice and Darren Mullahy.
Both teams engaged in cagey opening tactics. Derry landed some impressive Howitzer points from outlandish distance in the first 15 minutes. But that was partly because they had no option otherwise.
They could not get Paddy Bradley into the game and he finished without a score. Galway didn't concede a score from a free until the 17th minute and they never gave the visitors a chance to get comfortable on the ball. Loose passes were punished more often than not and Galway treated every minor tussle for possession as an important battle.
One sequence of play saw Bergin sprinting hard to close down Mark Lynch's run along the sideline and he threw a long arm at the football to force a sideline ball. It was a small moment that magnified the fact that right now Galway want to chase everything.
"We knew that this would be difficult, that it would be sort of championship for us," said Sammon. "And we asked everyone to give that extra little bit. In particular, I am pleased that we didn't concede a goal because we have been conceding two goals a game. I thought the six backs were outstanding. They manfully stuck to their task."
Derry's refusal to throw in the towel on a frustrating day was notable. Even after Clancy had sacked Derry for the third time, they responded with two points.
Conleth Gilligan tried to make things happen in the second half and they missed the influence of Fergal Doherty badly. They can chalk it up as one of those away days.
GALWAY: A Flaherty; D Burke, F Hanley, K Fitzgerald; G Sice, N Coyne, D Mullahy; N Coleman (0-1), B Cullinane; D Meehan, P Joyce (1-1), J Bergin (0-1); M Clancy (1-2), M Meehan (1-3, pen free), F Breathnach (0-1). Subs: S Armstrong for Breathnach (34 mins), D Dunleavy for N Coleman (41 mins), N Joyce for N Coyne (53 mins); C Bane for M Clancy (65 mins), M Clancy for S Armstrong (66 mins).
DERRY: J Deighan; K McGuckin, K McCloy, F McEldowney; L Hinphey, M McBride, M McIvor; E Muldoon (0-2), J Conway (0-2); M Lynch (0-2), P Murphy, B McGoldrick; C Gilligan (0-3, 2 frees), P Bradley, E Bradley (0-2). Subs: M Friel for P Murphy (half-time), C Devlin for E Bradley (54 mins inj.), G O Kane (0-1) for McBride (54 mins), J Diver (0-1) for M Friel (64 mins), J Keenan for M McIvor (69 mins).
Referee: R Hickey (Clare).
