Underdogs Mayo unable to cause final upset
Mayo’s Erin Murray in action against Galway’s Kate Geraghty during the Connacht LGFA senior football championship final at Hastings Insurance MacHale Park on Sunday afternoon. Picture: David Farrell Photography
You wondered might Mayo be waiting in the long grass, but Galway took a strimmer to Green and Red hopes of a MacHale Park ambush when retaining their Connacht LGFA Senior Championship title with some comfort on Sunday afternoon.
The Tribeswomen were nine points winners, 0-16 to 1-4, with Mayo scoring just twice from play in exceptionally windy conditions.
Galway, who won the round-robin fixture with a degree of ease, had played with the elements behind them in the first-half and while taking ten minutes to register their first score, Daniel Moynihan’s side were 0-9 to 0-2 ahead by half-time.
Roisin Leonard’s four points and a brace by Olivia Divilly had the defending champions six points ahead before Sinead Walsh, from a free, picked off Mayo’s opening score of the match in the 22nd minute. Erin Murray would fist a second Mayo point but Divilly, Nicola Ward and wing-back Hannah Noone hit singles at the opposite end to leave the visitors in good stead at the halfway mark.
The introduction of Clodagh Keane to the full-forward position for the second-half was a sign of Mayo’s route one intent from hereon, yet it was Galway, against the breeze, who scored the opening three points, to move ten points in front after 40 minutes.
A lifeline presented itself to Liam McHale’s side in the 42nd minute when Keane fetched the first high ball sent her way and earned a penalty which Sinead Walsh dispatched, and Keane was unlucky not to goal herself when collecting a delivery by Sherin El Masry and drawing a save from goalkeeper Dearbhla Gower, which would have reduced the home side’s arrears to five points with twelve minutes left to play. But a pair of Walsh points was all they could add, with Galway’s overall strength seen in late points flashed over by substitutes Eva Noone and Shauna Hynes.
Both teams now enter the All-Ireland Series, with Mayo in a stiff group that also features Cork and the winners of today’s Munster Final between Kerry and Waterford.
