Glee’ for Galway as cool Connor crushes Mayo at the death
Galway goalkeeper Connor Gleeson celebrates kicking the winning point with Paul Conroy.
Possession might be nine tenths of the law but it won’t win you a Connacht final. Mayo discovered that to their cost on Sunday when they had every opportunity to lift the Nestor Cup yet were deservedly beaten by a Galway team that, at the eleventh hour, discovered its point to prove.
By no means written off but certainly chided for their underperforming of late, the 2022 All-Ireland SFC finalists came strong down the stretch to complete a three-in-a-row of Connacht senior football titles – the county’s first hat-trick in 40 years. And they did so with a hat-trick of stoppage time points, all of them from frees, to deny Mayo by the absolute narrowest of margins.
The visitors had looked on course to hand Kevin McStay his first Nestor Cup win as Mayo boss when leading this match by 0-15 to 0-13 in the 73rd minute yet in the fumes of stoppage time that remained, Galway scored as much as they had done in the opening half hour of the match to ensure they got the better of Mayo in a Salthill Connacht final for the first time since 2005.
Remember too that this was a Galway team that at no stage had led the Connacht semi-final against Sligo until Rob Finnerty palmed home a goal for the final score of the game.
Their hero on this occasion was Connor Gleeson from Dunmore, as it was the goalkeeper’s 48-metre free in the 76th minute that nudged Galway in front when it mattered the most. Three times before that the home side had led, but on each occasion their advantage lasted less than 60 seconds, yet despite holding pole position for so long in the game Mayo can have few complaints about losing this one.
Their goal had lived a charmed existence at times with Damien Comer, on two occasions, and John Maher going incredibly close to raising the green flag while at the other end, Gleeson hadn’t a real save to make.
Mayo had more shots than Galway, Mayo lost fewer kickouts than Galway, Mayo were guilty of fewer turnovers than Galway and unlike Galway, Mayo had 100 per cent accuracy in scoring their frees and marks but as referenced already, possession alone is never enough: Mayo struck nine wides from play compared to Galway’s two. That’s a critical statistic in a match decided by the absolute minimum.
Critical, too, was the absence of Mayo captain Paddy Durcan who had failed a fitness test last Thursday evening. A scorer of two points at the same venue less than 12 months earlier when Mayo knocked Galway out of the All-Ireland Championship (another game also decided by a single point), Durcan had also scored – and was named man-of-the-match – when Mayo ran Galway ragged in this year’s opening round of the National Football League, again in Salthill. The Mayo defence could have benefited from his experience; of the six starters, only Eoghan McLaughlin had played in a Connacht SFC final, but even that game was behind Pearse Stadium’s closed doors in 2020.
This time there were about 20,000 in situ to see referee David Gough award Galway 22 frees and Mayo 12. The referee’s opinions that Tommy Conroy had fouled John Maher, the free of which led to Rob Finnerty closing the gap to one point in the 38th minute of the second-half, and that Conor Loftus had over-carried rather than was fouled by a combination of Matthew Tierney and Paul Conroy in the incident that led to Connor Gleeson’s match-winner, were definitely contestable, but Galway had their own gripes with the Meathman too, whose quickness with the whistle had denied them an advantage that could easily have resulted in Padraic Joyce’s side rattling the net late on.
Joyce, for whom this was only his second victory over Mayo as Galway manager, deserved credit for having the humility to correct his decision to omit Shane Walsh and John Maher from the starting team. The selections instead of Kieran Molloy and Cathal Sweeney had not worked and the pair were withdrawn before half-time, with the introductions of Walsh and Maher critical to Galway turning this game around.
Mayo had dominated the first-half possession stakes yet were arguably fortunate to hold a two points half-time lead given Damien Comer’s unconverted goal chances, his first in the sixth minute pulled left, the other in the 14th minute superbly kept out by a strong one-handed save by Mayo goalkeeper Colm Reape. Both times the Galway full-forward had given his marker David McBrien the slip and did so again when landing his first point in the 16th minute, brilliantly reaching for a Paul Conroy free and whipping over from 40-metres.
Mayo at that stage led 0-3 to 0-2, with Mattie Ruane, Ryan O’Donoghue, a free, and Fergal Boland each on target, and Rob Finnerty scoring a close range free at the other end, awarded for a foul by McBrien in trying to deny Comer the first goal attempt.
And it was another push by McBrien on Comer that resulted in Finnerty’s free levelling the game on 18-minutes, but the hosts weren’t to score again until close to half-time as Mayo began to suffocate the middle third. Jack Coyne had sliced through only to fist against the Galway upright and other point attempts by O’Donoghue and Tommy Conroy sailed wide, but an excellent Stephen Coen block sparked a move that saw Donnacha McHugh rush upfield to raise white and restore Mayo’s lead, after which Conroy and O’Donoghue, a free, also split the posts to see Mayo double scores in front, 0-6 to 0-3, after 28 minutes.
Aidan O’Shea and O’Donoghue again further increased Mayo’s wide tally before an exchange of points between Finnerty, his first from play, and O’Donoghue, a mark. Another foul on Comer, this time clipped by Rory Brickenden, resulted in a fourth point for Rob Finnerty and a half-time score of Mayo 0-7 Galway 0-5.
The Green and Red were defending the clubhouse end for the second-half and had to endure a storming start by the home side who had the exceptional Comer, Johnny Heaney and Rob Finnerty land the opening three points inside eight minutes, all from play, to give their side the lead for the first time. How Galway hadn’t also managed to score a goal was due to some incredible last-ditch defending by Rory Brickenden; John Maher arced around the Mayo D and after a couple of give-and-gos, fired a shot that beat Colm Reape but not Brickenden who, on the goal-line, somehow managed to block and then divert the ball off the woodwork via the body of the incoming Liam Silke, with Reape diving upon the loose possession and earning a free out.
Jordan Flynn kicked a levelling point – Mayo’s first of the half – and two more in quick succession from Mattie Ruane, after Connor Gleeson was dispossessed out the field, and Ryan O’Donoghue, brilliantly from long range, saw Mayo 0-10 to 0-8 ahead after 47 minutes. The Mayo press was hurting Galway at this stage, with another overturn offering O’Donoghue the chance to try and lob Gleeson from 40-metres, but the Galway custodian retreated just in time.
O’Donoghue then extended the Mayo lead to three points from a free, and it was a bad score for Galway to concede given the original ‘45’ had been moved forward for Paul Conroy’s failure to retreat the requisite distance. But the men in maroon roared back into contention by scoring the next four points through Finnerty, a free, Gleeson, a free, Finnerty again, this time from play, and Shane Walsh, his first of the game, giving Galway a 0-12 to 0-11 lead after 62-minutes.
Cillian O’Connor immediately levelled, receiving a pass from fellow substitute Enda Hession, and while Walsh hit back with his second, Jack Glynn’s foul on Tommy Conroy saw O’Donoghue’s free tie the game at 0-13 apiece with five minutes of normal time to play.
A sweeping move involving Brickenden, the newly introduced Conor Loftus and Jack Carney, allowed midfielder Ruane to score his third point from play, before a second for Conroy, in what was his best Mayo display since 2021, left Mayo with a two points lead entering stoppage time.
But in a helter-skelter finish, placed ball conversions by Finnerty, Walsh and Gleeson turned Galway’s fortunes, with Cillian O’Connor’s long-range miss of a last-gasp equalising effort sparking wild celebrations beside the seaside.
The irony is that Mayo’s fate is an arguably kinder group in the All-Ireland Series where, with three teams to advance, they have a home opener against Cavan followed by a rematch with Connacht rivals Roscommon and a renewal of rivalries with Dublin, presuming the defending All-Ireland champions win next weekend’s Leinster SFC final. For their part, Galway will face Derry, either one of Donegal and Armagh, and Westmeath.
