Galway GAA discussion thread

Bleating Lamb · 09-07-2017 04:30PM

Nuetral (Leitrim man) here....so no bias,but watching Galways televised games this year I am incredulous that they persist with short kick out tactics when they have two tall midfielders who are good footballers!

They gave away 2 scores in first 5 mins today from short kick outs alone.
The manager was an archetypal midfielder who won his own ball .....so why doesn't he let his midfielders do the same thing!?

jam83 · 09-07-2017 04:34PM

Coming home from the match I think everyone in the Galway set up got blamed!
But really I'd blame management, there was no plan there today for kickouts. No movement in the backs, no dummy runs in midfield. Nothing.
Lavelle in first half still hit the big men in midfield a few times yet how many marks did Roscommon win on Galway kickouts? Plenty anyway. Jesus Galway couldn't even get a hand to break ball.
All the winter talk from players about learning from last years tipp match and they were out fought today. Roscommon wanted the dirty ball in midfield. They won an ocean.
Galway hit the post twice but sure Roscommon should have been about 10 points up at half time.
Management on the whole id blame for having no plan today. But after all the messing galway played great stuff to get it back to 3 and Lavelle I'd blame for killing the Galway comeback. He kicked it 30 yards straight to a Roscommon player. That was his fault. Roscommon were on the rack up till then.
FFS they need to drop lavelle now and hope power can kick straight.

Utopia Parkway · 09-07-2017 04:35PM

How much did Roscommon score from bad kickouts? At least 2 or 3 points came directly from poor kickouts and the 2nd Roscommon goal as well. Kicked longer but straight to the Roscommon player who just ran straight down the middle to score with barely a hand laid on him.

Add that to Gough who awarded Roscommon 3 ridiculously soft frees straight in front of the posts for off the ball offences and it all helped to keep the scoreboard ticking over for Roscommon all game.

Diabhal Beag · 09-07-2017 04:43PM

threeball wrote: »

Who though. We haven't had a good manager since O Mahoney.
We ended up losing by 9 so the fight back was short lived.
Clean out of management and deadwood needed.

Could do an awful lot worse than Fahy imo.

padd b1975 · 09-07-2017 04:47PM

Diabhal Beag wrote: »

Could do an awful lot worse than Fahy imo.

John Maughan!

spurshero · 09-07-2017 04:48PM

Just back . So disappointed . But I think the reality is that a lot of these players have been found out again and again . We have a few nice forward admittedly but are a long way from a good side . As for the manager a great player but in my view poor on the sideline . Backs got destroyed in first half today and at half time he takes off two forwards who got no ball ? Made no defensive changes regards 1 to 7 . I thought there was a case for taking each one of them off . Hard to know where to from here . The hard reality probaly is too many off the players just aren't good enough . Well done to Roscommon even if I think there next match will be there last of the season no more than ourselves .

threeball · 09-07-2017 04:50PM

Utopia Parkway wrote: »

How much did Roscommon score from bad kickouts? At least 2 or 3 points came directly from poor kickouts and the 2nd Roscommon goal as well. Kicked longer but straight to the Roscommon player who just ran straight down the middle to score with barely a hand laid on him.

Add that to Gough who awarded Roscommon 3 ridiculously soft frees straight in front of the posts for off the ball offences and it all helped to keep the scoreboard ticking over for Roscommon all game.

By my count the kickouts were directly responsible for 1-6. That's a lot to cough up and expect to win.
He never hit any of the big men. It was either too long or too short. How can we not have anyone better than him or last years lad to play in goal. There has to be one.

Goughs cards and fouls for dragging off the ball were laughable. You'd get more contact at a pre-teens disco

Farmer_3650 · 09-07-2017 05:10PM

I wouldn't rule Galway out against Donegal. Galway are on the up regardless of their performance today. Donegal are not the team they were a few years ago.

jam83 · 09-07-2017 05:16PM

spurshero wrote: »

Just back . So disappointed . But I think the reality is that a lot of these players have been found out again and again . We have a few nice forward admittedly but are a long way from a good side . As for the manager a great player but in my view poor on the sideline . Backs got destroyed in first half today and at half time he takes off two forwards who got no ball ? Made no defensive changes regards 1 to 7 . I thought there was a case for taking each one of them off . Hard to know where to from here . The hard reality probaly is too many off the players just aren't good enough . Well done to Roscommon even if I think there next match will be there last of the season no more than ourselves .

Did you see the subs today? Not being smart but there's nothing great in the backs there. Was mcdaid injured? He wasn't there anyway. David walsh barely has pace for full back. Michael farragher is a forward really and David wynne really then was the only other option.
Heaney was put in some awful spots by lavelles kickouts. Twas madness kicking to him and he was surrounded a few times by rossies. They had to shake it up and the forwards were the only ones they could change really.

09-07-2017 05:27PM

jam83 wrote: »

Did you see the subs today? Not being smart but there's nothing great in the backs there. Was mcdaid injured? He wasn't there anyway. David walsh barely has pace for full back. Michael farragher is a forward really and David wynne really then was the only other option.
Heaney was put in some awful spots by lavelles kickouts. Twas madness kicking to him and he was surrounded a few times by rossies. They had to shake it up and the forwards were the only ones they could change really.

McDaid was there in shorts and training gear.

Walsh probably didn't pick him for the squad.

Didn't look injured anyway when was wearing gear and boots.

Utopia Parkway · 09-07-2017 05:39PM

Farmer_3650 wrote: »

I wouldn't rule Galway out against Donegal. Galway are on the up regardless of their performance today. Donegal are not the team they were a few years ago.

Donegal haven't been great alright but Galway were so dreadful today I'm not sure I can see them recovering in time.

jam83 · 09-07-2017 05:44PM

gilberto_eire wrote: »

McDaid was there in shorts and training gear.

Walsh probably didn't pick him for the squad.

Didn't look injured anyway when was wearing gear and boots.

He was about to come on against mayo so he's in the panel.

Tellyium · 09-07-2017 05:50PM

we're still playing football like it's 1998. Token efforts at kick out strategy and defensive strategy. Still leavin it (or trying to) to a few natural forwards to kick scores. Hoping Shane Walsh can turn it on to paper over the cracks. Make no mistake, based on today and last year v Tipp, we are not near competing. Sure, we caught Mayo twice (for different reasons) but we are not a top team, not near it. Easy to blame defenders and goalie, but they should not be in a position to be exposed if there was even a rudimentary plan in place. No way should Cathal Sweeney have been left exposed for the first goal for example. We're going to make a quick exit to Donegal and are facing a torrid time in division 1 next year. I'm feeling the same thing tonight that I felt after Tipp last year and Westmeath, Waterford and Wexford in the qualifiers one time.

threeball · 09-07-2017 05:57PM

Who could be possibly brought in as manger to sort out that sh1tshow we saw today. Only Horan available that's any good and I doubt he'd take us on. Can't think of a single manager you'd want that's free.

Utopia Parkway · 09-07-2017 06:01PM

Can't understand how with 4 weeks to work on it the kickouts were a disaster again. You could see even early on that Lavelle was uncertain and this uncertainty spread to his defenders, to the rest of the Galway team and even the crowd. I mean at one stage he kicked a short kick out to Heaney who had not one but two Roscommon players hanging out of him. Absolutely mad stuff.

Suckler · 09-07-2017 06:25PM

Utopia Parkway wrote: »

Can't understand how with 4 weeks to work on it the kickouts were a disaster again. You could see even early on that Lavelle was uncertain and this uncertainty spread to his defenders, to the rest of the Galway team and even the crowd. I mean at one stage he kicked a short kick out to Heaney who had not one but two Roscommon players hanging out of him. Absolutely mad stuff.

+1 They got away with it the last day against Mayo. I thought they would have addressed it as it was a blatant area of concern. As you said, he looked uncertain too often with the ball on the tee. Galways midfield had a lot to answer for, they aren't small men.

casscass4444 · 09-07-2017 06:45PM

SomethingElse wrote: »

Completely clueless.

When is the B championship coming in?

I don't know.depressed after watching that excuse of a performance from Galway.lack of heart and effort all over the field.likely looking contenders one day and an amateur looking b or c team another day.basic basic errors everywhere certain players not up to the task and an overall lazy heartless game from Galway.3 points in the first half.
Serious questions need to be asked.and Walsh mute on the lines.roscommon had heart and put everything they had on the line even if they weren't super good.

poteen · 09-07-2017 06:46PM

Too many West Galway players in the team. Salthill is a dump also.

pjmn · 09-07-2017 06:49PM

A Rossie here and just about as surprised as anyone with the result... went more in hope than confidence... it was like Galway had no Plan B - once Roscommon covered off the option for short kick outs the entire Galway team looked like they didn't know what to do.... I'm probably biased but thought Roscommon worked hard for for the victory and deserved it....

... don't think Galway are out until Saturday week against Donegal, so probably gives Kevin Walsh and his team time to work on that Plan B...

09-07-2017 07:01PM

Also what was the point in bringing Meehan back, what are we supposed to be Dublin and holding him back for an AI final?.

Didn't mind him not playing in the league but he's back in the squad now for 3/4 months and is togged.

I'm sure he's not happy to be togging and not even getting a game... he hardly came back for training sessions.

Megager · 09-07-2017 07:06PM

It's hard to sustain it over league and championship, unless you are Dublin or Kerry. we saw that with Roscommon last year. This year they were primed to peak now and fair play to them they deserved the win and margin today. I always felt last year's margin was unfair on the rossies as they were flat that day.

I know Donegal are no great shakes but we will have to improve massively on this and Mayo showings to beat them..

I'm still optimistic for the future, a good minor and u21 team and a season in the top flight.

I feel though we have to address mentality a bit. Mayo seems to be our all Ireland the past 2 years

MaroonAndGreen · 09-07-2017 07:12PM

I said it in the Mayo thread, but I'd like to see ye're views on this too. IMO Galway gave up and threw in the towel around the 60th minute mark. They did the same versus Tipp last year when they went a bit behind. The fighting mentality and never say die attitude is not present in this Galway team. With the wind Galway had a 5-6 point deficit with ten mins to go wasn't very big, but it appeared that either they aren't fit and couldn't pressure Roscommon for 70 minutes or that they gave up. Very poor. Roscommon were playing around with them handpassing from 65 minutes onwards.

09-07-2017 07:18PM

First off you've got to say fair play to Roscommon. Had their homework done on us, peaked for the right time this year, played football at pace which suits their team as opposed to hand passing over and back muck they played last year. Also they came in with no hype. The hype around them last year was crazy but they kept it low key and got it right on the day. They created a lot of scoring chances and managed to cover up their defensive frailties enough to always look relatively comfortable. Really they deserved their victory by at least the 9 points they won by. With some better shooting it'd have been over at half time.

From our point of view, we'd papered over the cracks all year but we were brutally exposed today. We all know there's a lot of players in the Galway setup that are nowhere near inter-county standard but also we're being seriously undermined by a succession of clueless management teams.

Everyone in the country knows the failings that are there on our own kickout but like against Tipperary last year we were happy to give a hard running pacy team free ball from their own kickout for most of the game. When we did start to press them a bit in the 2nd half we got back into it before switching off for a couple of kickouts again handing Roscommon soft frees to keep the scoreboard moving.

Lots of players inter county careers should end after today. I won't name them but anyone who saw the match will know. Can't really see us beating Donegal and to be honest I don't really care. I'd prefer to get it done and dusted the next day and avoid a pasting from Kerry.

If we are searching for a new manager in the winter I don't really know where we'd look, we're not exactly blooding future management at underage with Gerry Fahey and Stephen Joyce in charge.

On a more positive note well done to the minors today. Some promising players in that side and hopefully will get a game or two in Croke Park. Between them and the u21s there is for the first time in a long time a core group of players with the potential to come through.

Overall Im not even depressed about that result. It was always going to happen at some stage. Hope Roscommon enjoy their victory.

threeball · 09-07-2017 08:22PM

gilberto_eire wrote: »

Also what was the point in bringing Meehan back, what are we supposed to be Dublin and holding him back for an AI final?.

Didn't mind him not playing in the league but he's back in the squad now for 3/4 months and is togged.

I'm sure he's not happy to be togging and not even getting a game... he hardly came back for training sessions.

Not hard to imagine he's a better option than Lundy when chasing a game.... or ever

MaroonAndGreen · 09-07-2017 08:24PM

Borders no.2 wrote: »

First off you've got to say fair play to Roscommon. Had their homework done on us, peaked for the right time this year, played football at pace which suits their team as opposed to hand passing over and back muck they played last year. Also they came in with no hype. The hype around them last year was crazy but they kept it low key and got it right on the day. They created a lot of scoring chances and managed to cover up their defensive frailties enough to always look relatively comfortable. Really they deserved their victory by at least the 9 points they won by. With some better shooting it'd have been over at half time.

From our point of view, we'd papered over the cracks all year but we were brutally exposed today. We all know there's a lot of players in the Galway setup that are nowhere near inter-county standard but also we're being seriously undermined by a succession of clueless management teams.

Everyone in the country knows the failings that are there on our own kickout but like against Tipperary last year we were happy to give a hard running pacy team free ball from their own kickout for most of the game. When we did start to press them a bit in the 2nd half we got back into it before switching off for a couple of kickouts again handing Roscommon soft frees to keep the scoreboard moving.

Lots of players inter county careers should end after today. I won't name them but anyone who saw the match will know. Can't really see us beating Donegal and to be honest I don't really care. I'd prefer to get it done and dusted the next day and avoid a pasting from Kerry.

If we are searching for a new manager in the winter I don't really know where we'd look, we're not exactly blooding future management at underage with Gerry Fahey and Stephen Joyce in charge.

On a more positive note well done to the minors today. Some promising players in that side and hopefully will get a game or two in Croke Park. Between them and the u21s there is for the first time in a long time a core group of players with the potential to come through.

Overall Im not even depressed about that result. It was always going to happen at some stage. Hope Roscommon enjoy their victory.

We are 5-6 years waiting for the Galway u21 winners to step up. There comes a time when you need to consider these guys as not young anymore. There comes a time when you realise that mentally they don't have it in them, that time was today for me.

09-07-2017 08:33PM

MaroonAndGreen wrote: »

We are 5-6 years waiting for the Galway u21 winners to step up. There comes a time when you need to consider these guys as not young anymore. There comes a time when you realise that mentally they don't have it in them, that time was today for me.

I'm not saying the u21 teams of the past, most of those guys as you say have been proven not up to it. I'm looking towards the current minors and u21s to push on for future teams. The u21 titles we did win in the past were nearly all one off wins. Every year we won Connacht we pretty much won the All-Ireland. This gave a false impression that there were a lot of good players coming through but Galway have fallen so far down the pecking order we need a succession of good underage teams coming through before we can hope to challenge again.

We most definitely haven't a conveyor belt of talent coming through but there's enough signs of life in the underage teams of the last few years to suggest that there's something to work with in trying to build a new team.

Tellyium · 09-07-2017 08:38PM

Couple of good points being raised. Someone mentioned about Galway giving up after 60. Same lack of fight as last year v Tipp. We got 6/7 points in a row today, but when that sequence broke, it was like "**** it were not going to win this one".
It was crying out for one of the senior players to grab it today, particularly in the first half. Where's the strength of character of Mannion, Fahy, De Paor, Joyce, Fallon, Finnegan and Walsh himself ( you could name any of that team there) ?
Secondly, we might have underage talent but minor /u21 is a different sport to senior at the top level and has been since we last won one. We have never reached the high bar in terms of set up and tactics to truly compete with the all Ireland contenders.

threeball · 09-07-2017 08:39PM

Have we got any development squads working in the background with good club players who didn't make it at minor or u21 but might have been late bloomers or do we just write lads off if they're not pulling up trees by that stage?
I know I played with a couple of players who were top class but never given the chance at county level. I'm sure its the same story in clubs across the county.

Syferus · 09-07-2017 09:10PM

Chin up lads, it's a 1-1-1 record for both teams over three Connacht finals now. With Mayo starting to splutter there may be a few more chapters in this rivalry to come. Makes for a nice change from Connacht being a forgone conclusion. The best times for all Connacht teams have been when there were a few different teams from the province competing at the top level. Best of luck in R4.

jam83 · 09-07-2017 09:14PM

Yeah I'd agree with it looking like Galway thought it was gone from them with about 7-8 mins left. it felt like that in the stand anyway, players obviously felt the same once Roscommon broke that big scoring sequence that Galway had. They put the ****s up Roscommon but once they got a score or two back, their confidence came back again on kickouts etc.
But I still think it comes down to how Galway took to the field. If it was dog eat dog from the start, like galway played against Mayo, galway would have come back again I think, I hope anyway.
But I think there was a complacency today from the off. Everyone I met wrote this game off as a 5-6 point win. That got into lads heads I think and it's just unbelievable how it happened again after tipp last year. Unbelievable.

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