Galway 3-18; Meath 2-11: Galway had 10 points to spare over bottom of Division 1A team Meath in their League clash at sunny Kenny Park, Athenry yesterday but it was a far from convincing victory.
They needed to win by a huge score to qualify for an automatic semi-final spot ahead of rivals Kilkenny but the task always looked beyond them and in the end they had to be content with a quarter-final place.
Galway will now meet Tipperary next weekend in Thurles without John Connolly, who has stepped down as a coach and selector, The former All-Ireland winner and All-Star cited pressure of work as the reason for his departure, which did not come as a complete surprise to the Galway camp.
Manager Noel Lane will recognise that a drastic improvement is needed if Galway are to make further progress in this year's competition. Despite scoring an impressive 3-18 the Tribesmen failed to shine in attack for long periods while their defence looked vulnerable on several occasions.
Damien Hayes can be well satisfied with his 2-2 tally which enabled Galway to put some daylight between themselves and Meath and Mark Kerins got a creditable 1-4, but the other forwards failed to shine.
Meath's Nicky Horan, who finished with 1-6 to his name, might have done even better but a number of his frees went narrowly off target. Mark Gannon, Ray Doran, Neville Reilly, John Donoghue and Cathal Sheridan also did well for them.
GALWAY: L Donoghue; G Kennedy, C Moore, O Canning; M Healy, L Hodgins, D O'Brien; R Gantley (0-3, 2 f), D Tierney; R Murray, M Kerins (1-4), K Broderick; F Forde, E Cloonan (0-6, 3 f), F Healy (0-3). Subs: B Higgins for Healy, D Hayes (2-2) for Forde, J Rabbitte for Broderick.
MEATH: M Gannon; R Dorran, P Donnelly, G Kennedy; C Keena, D Murray, D Callaghan; N Horan (1-6, 1-3 f), J Canty; T Reilly, D Doran (0-1), C Dunphy, N Reilly (1-1), J Donoghue (0-2), C Sheridan (0-1). Subs: I Mac Cormaic for Canty, P Coone for Dunphy, D Troy for Doran, P Gannon for Kennedy.
Referee: J Sexton (Limerick).
