Messages

Is it like but six wingers, get the seventh one free? I mean they already have Kuyt, Babel, Benyoun, Maxi, Rieira that can play out wide. I'm sure some others could too. I would have thought priority spending would be an additional striker to fill the gap when Torres doesn't play. Ngog is not good enough really. Also a left back to replace Insua and another centre back would be my priorities.

Also I'm wondering as the Champions League seems a forlorn hope at this stage, do we really want to be in the Europa League next season. I mean there is a lot more games, a lot more travelling to destinations throughout the arseholes of Europe that seem to be only gotten to by Ryanair. This is on top of no real rest in the summer becuase of the World Cup so most players will not be rested or maybe injured and the priority next season would be to get back into the Champions League. Maybe being out of Europe altogether would give the players rest to focus on the league for one season at least. Or is the finanical benefits from the Europa League enough so that they must compete in the Europa League?

I suppose if they get to the Europa League final next season, it will be played in Dublin so maybe that's something for us irish supporters out of this entire mess.

 

Great result from a Galway point of view. I think there were a number of positives to be taken from the game.

We were 5-1 down and coughed up a couple of goal chances, I thiught we were going to be on the end of a hammering. The long ball in wasn't working and Dublin were using the blanket defence to good effect. Then Galway realised that when the Dublin half-foward line was pushed back into defence and the full-foward line holding their positions. Then Galway could try to attack up one side of the pitch, if it wasn't working out they could retreat to the half back line, regroup and attack again. I couldn't understand how Dublin let this continue!!!

There was a definite increase in Galway's intensity and workrate after the first 15 minutes. Also we were pushing pressure on Dublin high up the pitch and turning over possession in good areas. Also it has to be said the ref gave us a few handy frees as any good Meathman would 

There were big performances from Fitzy, Declan Meehan until his sening off, Conroy after his introduction, Sice ad Bradshaw. Also we didn't bottle it when Dublin equalised and we went down to 14 men, but fought hard to get the win. Hopefully we are developing a bit of backbone we've been lacking in recent years. We're still coughing up too many easy frees in defence, and winning ball in midfield is still an issue but I think we're progressing.

For Dublin, Bernard Brogan played well as did Keaney when he came on and I though McConnell had good spells during the game but they need a lot of work like Galway. 

I see Ray Silke has ruled himself out of the running. He wrote in his Galway Advertiser column: 'There have been more names bandied about for the role than confetti at a wedding and some of them are off-the-wall suggestions.
'I would include myself in that category. I have not even managed a club team at senior level as of yet, never mind a county team. Still, paper never refuses ink.
'With a very young and growing family and a lot of work commitments, I would have no interest in managing any county team at this juncture.'

Who said he was in the running for the job anyway? 

On my own behalf I would also like to declare myself out of the running for the Galway job 

Probably connacht final 96 in castlebar.

Felt that Galway were going somewhere in 1995 with a big win in the Connacht final and a narrow loss to Tyrone in the All-Ireland semi-final.

Great chance to kick on and do better the following year only to be well beaten by Mayo. That they came so close to winning the All-Ireland was no consolation.

You can tell Rick Parry has left!!

If Sammon is there next year maybe they could shake up the backroom team and get some more tactical awareness into the team and at least have a gameplan that we should try to implement come next summer. Like what was said previously it ain't 15 players against 15 anymore, we have to adapt or lose out.

Totally agree with what's being said. This has been more of less the same group of players for Galway since 2004/2005 who have consistently underachieved, why should we expect things to be different this time? I'm not sure what the answer is though, do we have a Roscommon type clear-out and bring in some of the minors from 2007? Would they get the same beating from Mayo that Roscommon did?

Again we were tactically naive. Why did Kieran Fitz follow his man out the field? Why wasn't he put in front of Murply and McFadden in the first half and doube team those players that were causing us problems? Also did we actually have a game plan at all? There seemed to be no method of style of play that we wanted to do. We were carrying too much ball and coughing it up too easily in the midfield.

I think a lot of this goes back to be considered a county who plays "traditional" football. We try to outscore the opposition. That's all fine and well but nobody else is playing that game and we are being left behind. This is now translating as losing football. Even Kerry had to change their style of play in recent years to deal with the more defensive aspects of the game. We still plod along thinking we have a superior style of play and losing out each year. I'm not saying we through the baby out with the bathwater, I'm saying we should get some systems and tighten up defensively and start from there.

I just hope that because we lost those two games by one point the powers that be don't think it was just bad luck. We were six points a worse team that Mayo last weekend and Donegal are no great team. We have some serious questions hanging over us at the moment and I'm not sure Sammon will have any of the answers???

I would play Armstrong at 13. He has a left foot.

I hope it's not like the last time we played Donegal in Castlebar and missed 4 goal opportunties

We haven't really recovered from going into the qualifiers at this stage before so hopefully
we'll break the habit this time

Probably the strongest team Galway could pick based on last week's performance.
You could make a case for Bane instead of Clancy if he was to be left up front
because Bane can score but won't do a lot in general play.

If Clancy swaps with Armstrong and Armstrong plays inside then fair enough.

The defence seems more solid, Coyne is not playing well, Bradshaw is not a corner back and
Meehan is a better option than Sice.

Midfield did well the last day and should be picked again. Coleman's distribution was poor but
our movement in the forward line was poorer still.

Our half forward line is our weakest line. Conroy has not played well in the championship thus far,
matthew clancy has not had much play in the last two games but we have concerns with him
taking wrong options from previously. P Joyce probably had his worst game for Galway the last day.
He need him to be on his game the next day.

The full forward line will score with good ball but they need to do better than the last day.

No idea how we are going to do. I thought our attitude the last day was poor and we
wait to see if there is a response.

Agree with what's being said. He seems to have some players he has no faith in and others who can't do no wrong. What people like Fitzy and Mullahy must be thinking on the sideline......

We need Bradshaw out of the corner and carrying ball in the middle. I would bring Mullahy in the next day, Sice was anonymous on Sunday.
Armstrong needs to stay close to goal too as he does his best work there. We should move Conroy to half forward and see how he starts the next day too.

I can't see beating Donegal to be honest. We were piss poor and Mayo were easily 6 to 7 points better than us. They had the chance for 3 goals in the first half and an annihilation would have been on the cards.

i felt our attitude was not right. We were not working hard enough particularly in the first half and no ball was sticking in the forwards at all apart from Nicky Joyce who did well.
The positioning of our players started off wrong and got worse. Sice started the forward and stayed there until Coyne got injured. Then we went with the John Maughan method of making three changes when one would do. Fitz had the top off and ready to come on too. Crazy stuff!! Bradshaw had a poor game in the full abck line compounded by that crazy pass to give away a point at the start of the 2nd half. We were poor enough without giving away scores. Sice, Breathnach, Conroy, Padraig Joyce were all anonymous. Armstrong was playing too far out, there was no cohesion in the forward line at all and both goals conceded were poor too.

I thought bergin did well at midfield and Coleman and Declan Meehan handled a lot of ball and Nicky Joyce did well too and that's about it to be honest. Some of these players have been around a number of years now and need to step up. However I doubt the step up is in some of them.
Lastly some of our play was naive, especially at the death. How Gardiner was allowed up the field to score is beyond me. Tyrone and Kerry would never have let that happen.

Congrats to Mayo, well deserved win. I think the team is average but apart from Tyrone everyone else is average and they have a good a chance as anyone apart from Tyrone. We are below average and it all depends next week on what Donegal shows up but unless there is a massive change in a week our championship will peter out in a very disppointing manner.

I think this role that everyone has assigned to declan meehan based on his jersey number would be more suited to Bradshaw. As meehan is getting on, he has the greater engine, the height to compete for the ball in the middle and able to take a score. I would use Bradshaw in this roving role. I'm not sure if this is what Sammon has in mind?

Whatever it is a Connacht final is not the time for experimenting. We have known that midfield is a problem area all year, we should know what we are doing to limit the damage that could be caused there by now.

That said this will probably be a close thing, a goal or two at critical moments will decide it either way.

It all depends on the midfield really. If Galway can break anyways close to 50-50 at midfield then they have a great chance. In last year's Connacht Final we were wiped out at midefield for around the last 15 mins of the half half and first 20 mins of the second half. Only we rattled in two goals before the game settled down, we would have been in big trouble, as it was it was level with ten minutes to go after been 6 points up at one stage.
We ended up with four or five midfielder on at one stage against Sligo and again we go into a Connacht final with questions over midfield.
I think our backs get unfair criticism at times (and there is some lazy journalistic minds about Glaway forwards being brilliant and backs being shite) but they won't cope if Mayo break anymore than 60-40 at midfield.

 

I also taught that the bullying tactics came from some supporters and not from the players themselves. And I don't think anything that Galway players did could compare to some of the nothern teams for example but we're going over old ground here.

I think McGarrity is a big loss, he destroyed us at midfield in 2006 against probably the same pairing that we'll have out the next day. Hopefully we'll do what we've done in the last few years rattle in a few goals at the start and then hang on 

Isn't it funny how it's always your own that bring you down?