
Originally Posted by
BallyBoy
Galway League 2 Mayo league 0
A strong and impressive Galway outfit proved much sharper than Mayo in this Oscar Traynor game at Terryland Park today. Mayo's cause was not helped with the late withdrawl of Dessie O'Malley ('flu victim), Joe Lawless (back injury), and the longer term injury to Mick Duffy. Danny Scahill also had to pull out of the squad after failing a late fitness test.
Mayo played with the advantage of a strong breeze in the first half but it was Galway that were first to threaten when an effort by Keith Ward hit the upright and Dave Goldby's follow up header went narrowly wide in the 6th minute. It took until the 20th minute before Mayo had a serious attempt on goal - good interplay between Shane Hynes and Tom O'Connor set up the latter some 10 yards from goal but his effort went narrowly wide when a goal seemed the obvious outcome.
Ollie Keogh in the Galway midfield was the dominant force in this sector, and was ably assisted by Alan O' Donovan on the right. Mayo, despite playing a 5 man midfield, were not finding their men with the same degree of fluency as Galway, and Mayo were somewhat fortunate when poor passing led to O'Donovan's effort going across the face of goal and narrowly wide after 30minutes.
Mayo were however unfortunate to concede after 40 minutes when the defence failed to clear a relatively easy situation, and the ball fell to O'Donovan who crossed for the inrushing Ollie Keogh to hammer home Galway's opening goal past the helpless Josh Tierney. Keogh was injured in the process, and was replaced by the equally impressive Mike Tierney.
Mayo upped the tempo in the second half, and were beginning to show good signs of recovery but were dealt a hammer blow when O'Donovan's cross from the right was only partially cleared by Josh Tierney and substitute Sean Reilly (on for the injured Martin Geraghty) to the unmarked Keith Ward, who hammered the ball past Tierney to give Galway a comfortable 2 goal cushion after 55 minutes.
In an all out effort to recover something from the game Alan McDonnell was introduced for Pat Fitzgerald, and Eugene Gorman came on for Sean McHale, with the Mayo side reverting to a 4 - 4 -2 formation with Gorman up beside Vinny O'Malley in attack. This looked like paying quick and rich dividends when Vinny O'Malley did well and found the in rushing Tom O'Connor on the left only to see the latter's effort expertly saved by Padraic Lally in the Galway goal, and pushed out for a corner. This however was to be the nearest that Mayo would come to scoring despite finishing the stronger of the two sides. Final efforts from Tierney (Galway), Gorman and O'Malley in the closing minutes came to nothing.
Galway
Lally, Rabbette Stephen, Lawless, Rabbette Seamie, Emmet Byrne, Jamie O'Driscoll, Simon Walsh, Keith Ward, Ollie Keogh, Alan O'Donovan, Dave Goldby subs S Crowe, E Browne, M Tierney, M Gilmore, P Konik, M Colby, D Roach
Mayo
Josh Tierney, Niall Walsh, Tom O'Connor, Tommy Walsh, Martin Geraghty, David Horkan, David Cameron, Pat Fitzgerald, Sean McHale, Vinny O'Malley, Shane Hynes subs Eugene Gorman, Philip Devers, Sean Reilly, Alan McDonnell, Niall Gallagher, Ger O'Boyle, Malachy Byrne
Referee John Doyle (Galway)
Mayo's next match in the group is at home to Donegal on Sunday 27th January at Milebush Park
Regards
Joe Butler
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