Galway vs Clare

What a match, Galway's first big championship win since 2005. Galway were playing against 16 men at some stages but still managed to win. John Lee had a stromer at centre half back and definately proved the doubters wrong. Clare were quite poor and I can see them going the same way as Offaly and Wexford. Roll on Cork and hopefully we can get revenge for last year in Thurles.

Yeah good win Clash but I can't help thinking ye are still not getting the best out of JC. I don't rate Clare but ye put them away comfortably and are moving in the right direction. There is no reason why this Galway team will not run til September if they avoid the Cats ........ but then...

The thing about Joe Canning is though he has said it himself that he sees himself more as a creator. You then have the dilemma of playing him further out the field where he can have more of an influence or do you put him in full forward where he has a good chance of scoring or setting up goals. His pass to Cyrill Donnelan in the second half was unreal, he handpassed into space and Donnelan came tearing onto it before being closelined by O'Connell. It showed excellent vision and not many players would have picked Donnelan out.

Yeah I know what you mean Clash. Maybe play him floating between CHF and FF - that way he can use his vision and still be a goal threat? I still think his vision for the pass will open up goal chances for half forwards coming through - and this would make him more effective that an out and out 14 seeking his own goal chances.

A good result yesterday, granted Clare were poor but I was happy enough with our performance. I would echo what the analysts said about ball into the forwards, we definitely should play the lower ball into them and hit the corners more often working to our pace advantage. Other than that I was very happy.

John Lee was immense, so glad he came back to the panel as on that form we're always in with a chance. It's great to see someone plucking the ball out of the air with confidence and then charging on up the field, seemed to give everyone a lift.

Cork will be a very tough game but it's the one I really wanted. If we're going to win anything this year it'll be done the hard way but I think we owe it to ourselves to right the wrong of last years performance. Hopefully the injured lads are back for that as I liked the look of the starting 15.

On another note I had trouble for a while getting a live stream up on the computer so I listened to about two thirds of the game via rte radio and I've got to say the coverage drove me mad, every five minutes they were back to the studio for something or other, I totally missed the build up to Clare's penalty and I lost it completely when they went to the news at 8pm! If they're going to commentate on a game can they not just do it, it was infuriating! Luckily I got the live stream up eventually and the blood pressure went back to normal levels.

Heard McInerney put Joe in his pocket? Mossbags is this true? Well done James, though Joe the eginma continues to flatter?

Loyal2TheRoyal wrote:Heard McInerney put Joe in his pocket? Mossbags is this true? Well done James, though Joe the eginma continues to flatter?

McInerney played well alright and was probably Clares best player. Was glad to see the other Galway players step up to the mark with 8 different players scoring. Canning did have an influence on the match and it was his pass that made O'Connell put in an awful tackle on Donnelan.

Loyal2TheRoyal wrote:Heard McInerney put Joe in his pocket? Mossbags is this true? Well done James, though Joe the eginma continues to flatter?

Tis true indeed. They were directly in front of me in the 1st half. The two boys used to live together in Limerick and are good enough friends by all accounts. Joe was probably going easy on his buddy although he did flatten McInerney at one stage after the Clareman clearly said something he shouln'd have. More fool him.
Luckily for Galway theres so much more to Joes game than full forward play and his distribution and the way he created space and opened up play once he roved outfield was truly a marvel to behold.