All Ireland U21 football championship 2017

[GalwayBayBoy]

John Fallon
April 17 2017 2:30 AM

Galway's preparations for this All-Ireland semi-final at Cusack Park included a full training session in midweek at the Ennis venue, where they paid particular attention to shooting into the breeze.
No surprise then that when they had the wind in the opening half on Saturday the scores flowed in an early blitz, which saw them lead by 1-7 to 0-1 after just 10 minutes.
Kerry, winners of the last three All-Ireland minor titles, and ill-prepared for such an onslaught after a stroll through Munster, were simply unable to cope with it.

The fact that they stayed in the game to cut the gap to a goal going into the final quarter had more to do with Galway not finishing them off in the opening half, with the Tribesmen fluffing three gilt-edged goal chances in addition to shooting eight wides to none when they had the wind.
There is no doubt Galway football is on the rise and a week after securing the Division 2 league crown and promotion, Kevin Walsh's team will head into the defence of their Connacht SFC title with a host of promising U-21s ready to step up.

Some already have and Michael Daly again showed his class on Saturday, on a day when Galway's traditional style of football was manifested by the dominance of Peter Cooke and Cein D'Arcy in midfield, the brilliance of Cillian McDaid at wing-back and a forward unit which would not have been flattered had they finished with double what they achieved.

Kerry, in contrast, never got moving and three points from play accurately sums up their difficulties on a day when only Killian Spillane, Tom's son, showed anything close to what's required at this level.

Galway manager Gerry Fahy said he knew from the start of the year that this group was special and he now wants them to finish the job against Dublin on Saturday week, in what will be the last ever U-21 All-Ireland final.
"Right from the day that we met, you could sense from our lads that they were on a mission. They were going to give it everything they had and thankfully it worked out well for us," said Fahy.

"These lads hadn't done well at minor level, they would have been disappointed that things didn't go well for them. We were very determined to win a Connacht championship. We won that, we were hoping it wouldn't satisfy us and now we are in a final we are going to have a right good crack at it.
Galway players celebrate after the EirGrid GAA Football All-Ireland U21 Championship Semi-Final.

"We should give credit to our team as we have good technical footballers. That made the difference. We were battle-hardened. We were tested all the way, we pushed every day we went out. Maybe it was a factor at the end."

His side had a dream start, a string of passes sending Dessie Conneely through and he blasted to the top-left corner after just 21 seconds.
The points flowed from all angles and it was 1-7 to 0-1 with just 10 minutes gone. Three golden goal opportunities were not seized by Galway, though, and they had to be content with a 1-9 to 0-4 interval lead.

A contentious goal from Matthew O'Sullivan 21 seconds after the restart, and some points from Spillane and a second free from goalkeeper Shane Ryan, cut the gap to a goal going into the final quarter.

However, then midfielder Barry O'Sullivan was sent off when he picked up a second yellow card and Galway took control again and pulled away, with impressive sub Colin Brady wrapping it up with their second goal.

Kerry manager Jack O'Connor, after initially declining to speak to the media, admitted in a brief interview that the better team won, but he was unhappy with Kildare referee Brendan Cawley.
"I just thought on the day that we didn't get a whole pile of breaks from that man. Galway seemed to get frees a bit easier than we got frees," he said.

"There was a case in point when Jordan Kiely appeared to be fouled on the Galway '21' and play went on and Galway wound up getting a handy enough free down the other side.

"Look, we are only splitting hairs there. I think Galway were better, but certainly on the day we didn't seem to get a lot of breaks," added a disgruntled O'Connor.

Scorers - Galway: P Cooke 0-5 (3f), C Brady 1-0, D Conneely 1-0, S Kelly, M Daly 0-2 each, K Molloy, C McDaid, C D'Arcy, R Finnerty, P Mannion 0-1 each.

Kerry: K Spillane 0-4 (3f), M O'Sullivan 1-0, J Kiely 1-0, S Ryan (2f), M Flaherty 0-2 each, C Geaney (1f), S O'Shea (1f) 0-1 each.

Galway: R O Beolain; L Kelly, S O Ceallaigh, R Greene; K Molloy, D McHugh, C McDaid; P Cooke, C D'Arcy; S Kelly, M Daly, P Mannion; R Finnerty, E Finnerty, D Conneely. Subs: C Brady for Mannion (41), M Boyle for R Finnerty (54), C Brennan for D'Arcy (56), E Lee for McDaid (60).
Kerry: S Ryan; Tom Leo O'Sullivan, J Foley, Tom O'Sullivan; B O Beaglaoich, B O Seanachain, G White; A Barry, B O'Sullivan; B Barrett, S O'Shea, M Flaherty; K Spillane, M O'Sullivan, C Geaney. Subs: M Burns for Barrett (29), R O Se for O Seanachain (41), J Kiely for S O'Shea (45), J Morgan for White (55), D O'Brien for O Beaglaoich (60).

Ref - B Cawley (Kildare)

[sligoman2]

It wasn't the ref, Galway should have won by a lot more if they took their chances.

Kerry looked shell shocked, had no plan and couldn't recover from the early Galway onslaught.

[An Fhairche Abu]

Always disappointing to see Kerry folk mentioning the performance of the referee after a defeat where they were comprehensively outplayed but given that they rarely lose football matches at any grade, it seems to be very much par for the course with them after defeats. No mention or explanation from Jack O'Connor in that article of how his charges weren't at the pitch of the game at all, how were such raging favourites so flat on the day? Certainly this was more the reason for their defeat than the referee.
If Kerry had made an unlikely comeback to win that match I'd hope that Gerry Fahy would be talking afterwards about Galway wasting the umpteen chances they had to win rather than to blame the referee for the first Kerry goal which should have clearly been disallowed.

Indeed if Galway had put the boot into them when totally on top Kerry would have been massacred, the 4 point margin was very flattering given how the match unfolded, which was totally unexpected by everyone outside of that Galway squad.

The Galway lads will have to be less profligate with their scoring opportunities in the final to be in with a chance, impossible to keep up the conversion ratio of the first ten minutes but equally they blew a lot of easy chances after that, nice to have that type of problem as something to work on ahead of the final though.

Always a danger of a flat final performance after playing very well in the semi final but in the overall scheme of things the most important issue for the future is to see how many of these young men will progress to the senior ranks and be good players for Galway at that level. Daly, Cooke and McDaid look the most likely but as we've seen before there's no guarantees for any player to make it.

[Syferus]

Says all you need to know that he was so petulant he first refused to do an interview. Straight from the Phil Taylor sore loser/gracious winner playbook.

[Maroon Manc]

Very sour from O'Connor, Kerry scored twice as many points from frees than Galway did. As for the lad who got sent off I read somewhere it was likely he got sent off for persistent fouling and he's obviously ignoring their extremely dodgy first goal.

Lots to work on from a Galway point of view, they had nearly twice as many attempts at the posts compared to Kerry. Galway had 34 whilst Kerry had 19, that won't happen in the final.

[galwayman]

Very sour from O'Connor, Kerry scored twice as many points from frees than Galway did. As for the lad who got sent off I read somewhere it was likely he got sent off for persistent fouling and he's obviously ignoring their extremely dodgy first goal.

Lots to work on from a Galway point of view, they had nearly twice as many attempts at the posts compared to Kerry. Galway had 34 whilst Kerry had 19, that won't happen in the final.

I don't think it's a good idea to talk about the referee afterwards regardless but you'd maybe say something if it was a closely contested game throughout where each and every decision could be the difference between winning and losing which was far from the case on Saturday.
We could have won that game by 10+ points and were by far the better team throughout.
All it does is make O'Connor come across as a sore loser.

[Jinxy]

The officials, players, back-room staff, county board and bus driver have all let Jack down badly here.

[GalwayBayBoy]

Final is in Tullamore April 29 @ 5pm.

[imtommygunn]

The fella who was sent off was fouling all day long and would have got the line at some point.

To be fair they were closing a bit to this point but o'connor should maybe ask himself why he didn't bring what looked like their most potent forward on sooner.

Also i do think some refs would have disallowed kerry's first goal.

[orangeman]

That's the great thing about football. Anything can happen. Galway seemingly shouldn't even have been turning up to their semi final and whilst the other semi final was supposedly a tighter one, a lot of people were expecting a Kerry Donegal final.

Dublin should win the final but Galway won't be reading the script.

[Hound]

Dublin should win the final but Galway won't be reading the script.

Paddy Power has Galway as 5/6 favourites. Dublin 6/5.
Boylesports have the exact opposite.
Ladbrokes have them both at evens.
The 15/2 draw will have plenty of takers I'd say.

Nobody suggesting there's a script out there with the Dubs as strong favourites!

[ck]

So Dublin u21s have opted out of club championship this weekend. Donegal asked them to put their semi final back a week and Dublin said no because of club championship commitments. 

The very serious issue here is Mr GPA Dessie Farrell asking his Dublin players not to play for their clubs. Disgraceful.

[Syferus]

So Dublin u21s have opted out of club championship this weekend. Donegal asked them to put their semi final back a week and Dublin said no because of club championship commitments. 

The very serious issue here is Mr GPA Dessie Farrell asking his Dublin players not to play for their clubs. Disgraceful.

The only scummy thing was using the championship games as an excuse to bully Donegal. I doubt Dessie had much convincing to do to get lads to commit for an AI final over a club championship game.

[cornetto]

Looking back at the Dublin v donegal semi final,Dublins defensive shield is top class,every game on the way to the final,they have controlled the game.galway on the other hand beat leitrim in the first half,no show in the second 2pts I think.beat mayo well enough, sight of green and red .sligo stuck with them all the way,extra time the difference.Galway were well motivated for kerry,I just have a bad feeling galway may not reach the same level of performance,will be alot of long range shooting,in a tight game, whether it's daly for galway,or Callaghan for the dubs that show up  will be the winner.

[Captain Obvious]

Looking back at the Dublin v donegal semi final,Dublins defensive shield is top class,every game on the way to the final,they have controlled the game.galway on the other hand beat leitrim in the first half,no show in the second 2pts I think.beat mayo well enough, sight of green and red .sligo stuck with them all the way,extra time the difference.Galway were well motivated for kerry,I just have a bad feeling galway may not reach the same level of performance,will be alot of long range shooting,in a tight game, whether it's daly for galway,or Callaghan for the dubs that show up  will be the winner.

This Dublin U21 team are built on a solid defensive system alright and counter attack at pace. They remind me of the Dublin 2010 U21 team who got a number of senior defenders out of that side and top forward in Dean Rock.

Galway seem very inconsistent they fade out of games however if they can correct that they should win this final.