Galway v Sligo -June 9th

[Mano]

Sligo team named:

1    Philip Greene         St.John's           
2    Neil Ewing             Drumcliffe/Rosses Point           
3    Johnny Martyn      St.Mary's           
4    Ross Donovan      Eastern Harps    (Capt)       
5    Charles Harrison   St.John's           
6    Mark Quinn            St. Molaise Gaels           
7    Paul McGovern      Eastern Harps           
8    Shane McManus    Geevagh           
9    Eugene Mullen        Easkey           
10    Brendan Egan      Tourlestrane           
11    Pat Hughes           Geevagh           
12    Alan Costello        Coolera/Strandhill           
13    Stephen Coen      St.Mary's           
14    Adrian Marren      Curry           
15    Mark Breheny       St.Mary's   

2 changes from the New York game then with Martyn in for McGuire and Mullen in for Taylor. Would not be very confident with that line out. Think i would put Harrison back in the corner and reinstate Johnny Davey. Would be extremely worried about that fullback line. I would hope Walsh has learned his lesson from Connaught final 2010 and puts a sweeper (Egan) to stop direct ball to Conroy and bring Brehony out to the wing.

[Mano]

Where is Geevagh ?

Geevagh (Irish: An Ghaobhach) is a village in the south-east corner of County Sligo, Ireland, on the R284 regional road.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geevagh

[GalwayBayBoy]

Are Kelly and O'Hara genuine major doubts or can we expect to see them magically appear in the starting team come Saturday evening? Just seems odd to name a team so early when two important players need time to recover. Either there is very little chance for them to be right by Saturday or that team will be different come throw-in.

[seafoid]

Where is Geevagh ?

Geevagh (Irish: An Ghaobhach) is a village in the south-east corner of County Sligo, Ireland, on the R284 regional road.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geevagh

Thanks

[Blowitupref]

If it comes down to management Kevin Walsh v Alan Mulholland i can only see a straight forward win for Galway however it depends on which Sligo turns up? the 2010 team that won v Mayo,Galway or the 2011 team that lost to Leitrim,Wicklow.

On another note. With a concert going on in Salthill why wasn't this game switched to Tuam?

  How does that work?

One is a more astute manager than the other. Sligo under Walsh have been notoriously inconsistent. In reply to O'Hara,Kelly not starting i don't think either player played any league football both are recovering from injury hardly a surprise that both are not selected to start.

[moysider]

If it comes down to management Kevin Walsh v Alan Mulholland i can only see a straight forward win for Galway however it depends on which Sligo turns up? the 2010 team that won v Mayo,Galway or the 2011 team that lost to Leitrim,Wicklow.

On another note. With a concert going on in Salthill why wasn't this game switched to Tuam?

  How does that work?

One is a more astute manager than the other. Sligo under Walsh have been notoriously inconsistent. In reply to O'Hara,Kelly not starting i don't think either player played any league football both are recovering from injury hardly a surprise that both are not selected to start.

So how do we know this. Mulholland hasn t had a single championship season yet. What s to go on?

[Blowitupref]

If it comes down to management Kevin Walsh v Alan Mulholland i can only see a straight forward win for Galway however it depends on which Sligo turns up? the 2010 team that won v Mayo,Galway or the 2011 team that lost to Leitrim,Wicklow.

On another note. With a concert going on in Salthill why wasn't this game switched to Tuam?

  How does that work?

One is a more astute manager than the other. Sligo under Walsh have been notoriously inconsistent. In reply to O'Hara,Kelly not starting i don't think either player played any league football both are recovering from injury hardly a surprise that both are not selected to start.

So how do we know this. Mulholland hasn t had a single championship season yet. What s to go on?

Management is management i don't go with the "senior football is a step up" Mulholland won the Minor All Ireland in 2007 & the U-21 All Ireland in 2011 without him i don't think Galway would have got out of Connacht those years.

[magpie seanie]

Where is Geevagh ?

Geevagh (Irish: An Ghaobhach) is a village in the south-east corner of County Sligo, Ireland, on the R284 regional road.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geevagh

Thanks

A wild spot for getting an atin by midges if you are unlucky enough to not be selected or get the early curly finger. Glenfarne-esque in this regard.

[An Fhairche Abu]

No surprises in the Galway team named, exact same starting fifteen that lined out against Roscommon:

1 Adrian Faherty
2 Kieran McGrath
3 Finian Hanley
4 Keith Kelly
5 Garreth Bradshaw
6 Johnny Duane
7 Gary O'Donnell
8 Joe Bergin
9 Greg Higgins
10 Gary Sice
11 Damien Burke
12 Thomas Flynn
13 Sean Armstrong
14 Paul Conroy
15 Mark Hehir

[GalwayBayBoy]

http://www.tribesmengaa.ie/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1008:galway-team-named-for-the-sligo-match&catid=92:team-news&Itemid=70&Itemid=53

[moysider]

If it comes down to management Kevin Walsh v Alan Mulholland i can only see a straight forward win for Galway however it depends on which Sligo turns up? the 2010 team that won v Mayo,Galway or the 2011 team that lost to Leitrim,Wicklow.

On another note. With a concert going on in Salthill why wasn't this game switched to Tuam?

  How does that work?

One is a more astute manager than the other. Sligo under Walsh have been notoriously inconsistent. In reply to O'Hara,Kelly not starting i don't think either player played any league football both are recovering from injury hardly a surprise that both are not selected to start.

So how do we know this. Mulholland hasn t had a single championship season yet. What s to go on?

Management is management i don't go with the "senior football is a step up" Mulholland won the Minor All Ireland in 2007 & the U-21 All Ireland in 2011 without him i don't think Galway would have got out of Connacht those years.

I dunno. I remember Johnno and Peter Forde won U21 titles with Galway but could not/did not do much after with them. It s not so long ago it was Walsh that was being hawked as a great new managerial ace when he first arrived in Sligo.

[myball22]

Looking forward to the game. I think Galway are on a bit of an up, we got momentum through the league and a good win last time out. I would expect Sligo to but someone in front of full-forward line to stop the long ball in to Conroy, I hope we can have a plan B to work the ball up the field and take some long range score.

I will be interested to see how our midfield get on, I didn't expect Bergin to dominate against Roscommon and we will see if he can do this in a harder game, I hope Higgins can step up further also. Also if Kelly comes on we will see if our young corner backs can handle the smaller quicker forward, it will be a different challenge to Shine and Kilbride.

I think as long as we can break even at midfield I feel we are on an upward curve and hopefully get the right result. For the first time in a while we look to have strength on the bench with Joyce, Meehan, Fahy and O'Curraoin(?) so they could help us get over the line in the end.

[sligoman2]

Anyone know if ohara and kelly are included in the subs for tomorrow?
Tough assignment with those two missing.
On the bright side,we always play better when we are massive underdogs. We need to get our fair share of posession at midfield to have any chance.  Hopefully mcmanus doesn't get stage fright tomorrow and the real eugene mullen shows up

[An Fhairche Abu]

The last day out Roscommon let Galway play their football and they got murdered for it, no other team we meet for the rest of the year will be as loose marking and as badly off the pace as the Rossies were on May 20th.
Tactically Newton hadn't a clue what to do when Galway started pumping down ball onto the Roscommon FB line and started getting the scores out of it. He left Carty on Conroy for the entire 70 minutes, he didn't put a sweeper in front of the full back line to at least make Galway have to think about trying something else for a bit and persisted in keeping his players in an ineffective zone style defence which allowed the Galway half back line the run of the pitch up to the Roscommon 40 yard line.

However despite Roscommon's failings you can only beat what's in front of you. At least that's two good Galway performances in a row, one of them against a Kildare team tipped as a possible contender for the major honour this year and who, rather than just going through the motions of a final league match, were actually desperate to win on the day, when was the last time we were able to say that about a Galway team? When was the last time we racked up a big score in a championship game, even against a team that played as bad as that Roscommon team?
A bit of confidence surrounding the whole Galway setup is no harm at all, the last time there was any buzz about the team was in 2008, it's been nothing but unrelenting pessimism (that was warranted to be honest) the past 3 years. It mightn't win any All Irelands at the end of the day but I was damn glad to see a bit of swagger back in our play, we won't win any All Irelands playing like Donegal either, we couldn't even win any championship games trying to play like that.

Immediately after the Roscommon game Mulholland made reference to a Plan B for other matches, the management team know they won't have it as easy on Saturday, Kevin Walsh won't setup his team to allow Bradshaw, Duane and O'Donnell the freedom of the park they had in the 1st half against Roscommon when Sligo come to Pearse stadium.
By the sounds of it Kelly will play for Sligo at some point, surely if he is near 100% then he'll be on from the start, Sligo couldn't be any worse than last year and in 2010 they were (IMO) the best team in Connacht but they failed to turn up in the final allowing the Rossies to take the Connacht title.

No more than Galway the last championship year for Sligo was a total waste with two losses out of two and nothing much positive to be said about it. Again much like Galway this year their league results improved towards the end of the campaign which is a good sign. The New York result needs to be put in the same category as our victory over Roscommon, the opposition were so poor that not many clear conclusions can be drawn, although again Sligo could only beat what was in front of them and they did that with the minimum of fuss while racking up a large score.
Whichever team comes out the right side of it will surely be given a much harder battle tomorrow that will stand to them when facing Mayo (Leitrim have no chance in Castlebar on the other side of the draw) in the Connacht final, because, make no mistake, Mayo remain the class apart in Connacht at this moment in time.

Regarding Galway going with the same starting fifteen I see on another forum that there is a few calling for Cummins to be introduced ahead of Hehir, I would say only this: Hehir won every single ball that was played into him against Roscommon and several of those were straight up 50/50 tussles with the corner back. A sharp contrast in this area of contesting for middling ball should be made with the man who would more than likely have played in his place had he not departed the panel. Hehir made two mistakes in getting the ball blocked down on an attempted point and a pass that was intercepted but he took the goal very well and his distribution was good. He was always showing for the ball and making clever runs to be available, unfortunately in the opposite corner Armstrong was second best to any 50/50 when going for the ball.

Cummins has the pace to do damage when introduced but maybe he is best held in reserve at the moment, Armstrong who I thought was the least impressive of the full forward line against Roscommon will surely be a bit better with a few more weeks training and the 50 minutes against Roscommon under him. If not then I could see his place coming under pressure for the next Galway match after Saturday.

In the last match from kick outs Higgins missed 3 clear catching chances with no Roscommon man near to put any pressure on him, he maybe had too much time and was thinking ahead with what he was going to do with the ball before he had it in hand. With securing the ball from kick outs such a crucial phase of the game, squandering such easy opportunities to gain primary possession will be much more costly against Sligo if these mistakes were to be repeated. In light of this Fiontán Ó Curraoin coming back to full fitness to challenge for one of the midfield spots on the team will only be a positive tomorrow and going forward whether it be to the Connacht final or the qualifiers, likewise it would be good to see Tomás Fahy putting pressure on O'Donnell for the number 7 jersey; it's this kind of competition that is badly needed on the Galway team, when you see how easy Kerry have in the past discarded previous AI winners from their panel – nevermind the starting fifteen – the value of keeping everyone fighting for their place cannot be overstated.

If Galway can win the midfield sector again like we did against Roscommon and Kildare in the league game then I think that we'll win. The Kildare game (more so than the Roscommon game) gave me some heart about Galway this year despite the sickener of the result, it was the first time in a long while that the players looked like there was a gameplan in action that they were sticking to and making it work, probably more important was that they looked confident on the ball.
It's unrealistic to expect Galway to play as well again on Saturday evening as in their first outing, if the midfield battle is even then it could go either way, Sligo have no fear of this Galway team and I think that Mulholland made a good point in this video interview (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixJ-FHkknjY) in that Sligo's entire focus of preparation has been for this date all year long, which is bound to be an advantage. I also can't see Sligo throwing in the towel like Roscommon did while there is time left in the match either, two years ago they overturned a 3 point deficit to win with time almost up.

While I think that the bookies odds of 5/1 for Sligo considering their recent record against us is a phenomenal value bet, for a change I'm confident that we'll do the business with PJ and Meehan coming off the bench to seal it, I'm going for Galway by 3.

[ross4life]

I don't buy this talk of Mayo the class apart in Connacht after all they just struggled past us & London last year & haven't won back to back Connacht titles since 1996/97 & as 2010,2007,2001 has shown league form mean little.

As for tomorrow game. Looking at the odds (Galway1/6 Sligo 5/1) the punters are probably thinking Sligo played out of the same division as us both finished on the same points, sure if Galway can comfortably beat Roscommon away they should have no problem at home to Sligo but It's unlikely Sligo will use zonal marking,allow Conroy to have as much joy at FF, they should have cover if they lose one of their midfielders & the Galway's wing half backs are unlikely to have the freedom of park again.

On May 20th were Galway that good or Roscommon that bad? Saturday's game may tell us more.