Galway GAA Discussion Thread #2

Cullen Killeen has some engine on him. Seemed to be everywhere. Kennedy got enough of if in the first, hopefully he's OK. Two from two for the week so far 😁

They must have listen to you and decided this was a good plan 👌

More balanced side I feel. Hernon and Tierney back in from the start. Oisín Mac Donnacha and Shay McGlinchey return to the bench from injury. Be interested to see how Daly goes along with Mulhern, who can be a little loose in possession at time. Presumably O Laoi is injured.

McGlinchey barely kicked a ball for u20s. Mulryan our best u20 nowhere to be seen. Conroy will be flogged to death if we get to quarter final

Is he any relation to Frank Lohan living in the same parish?

Bit of moving around, no Rory Burke, Niland (younger) and now Cathal Mannion. Hopefully an element of minding Cathal. Would love to see Evan go well feel he's got a raw enough deal last couple of years......

Evan is probably the best free taker in the game but what he adds beyond that is limited enough.

Glad to see Lee go to midfield. I don't think we're getting the best of him at wing back. It could make his season. Killeen isn't working out there imo.

Because of the pace of the game they really need to have a live feed in the corner of any replay being shown on TV

Great performance. Probably the best all round performance in years, from Gleeson to the subs who came on. Everyone clicked. They pushed up on kickouts too and worked scores very well. Kildare kicked a lot of wides but Galway in that form will take serious beating.

Very poor Kildare team...any decent team and we would have been in trouble

Hardly a great performance. Beat a bad kildare team well but only because they're a bad kildare team. The amount of turnovers was ridiculous. We'd get badly punished against any of the top 6.

Only when Comer arrived did the attack feel like it had any real cut to it. Finnertys performance was papering over alot of cracks.

Cannot understand the policy of keeping McDaid and Conroy on the pitch in a game thats won. Conroy can't keep putting up those miles and McDaid is susceptible to injury when he tires.

Our hurlers seemed determined to continue their Houdini routine.

Yes Flaherty was injured. McGrath was in as sub goalie.

They have issues. Work rate again exact same as Kildare for 20 minutes. No breaking ball, came out with no rucks..... same theme.

But bigger issues are the structure of the team. They finally got things sorted when Daithí went into Jack O Connor and P. Mannion onto Chin. Issue with with is you now had two of your half back line playing in the full back line....... and some looked lost.

Josh Ryan very poor again (was he whipped at half time against Dublin?). Penalty give away and black card. The foul he gave away in the second half was borderline a yellow which should of been a red before MD whipped him off. Gavin Lee poor turned over too much ball. Killeen equally the same.

After that the rest especially in the second half were excellent. Daniels, Whelan, Rabbitte, Neary and C. Cooney off the bench destroyed them.

If Mannion and Daithi are going to be looking after Hego and Hayes for Dublin the next day he will have to look at the structure of the defense.

Down 50% of your forwards (Mannion, Niland and Rory Burke) no help either. Add Hanrahan now as well (looked serious). All in all be impossible to know where they are.

Open draw next Tuesday on Morning Ireland, can be drawn against any of the Round 1 winners, venue will depend on who is drawn out first.

It'll be on the weekend of the 13th/14th of June. 50/50 whether its at home or away, and that away could be anywhere from Letterkenny to Cork, Castlebar, Dublin etc.

It's not knock out, if they lose they'll be out the following in what'll effectively be a preliminary quarter final (knockout), and if they win that they'll be out the following week in a QF. So they'll have a 3 week gap from game 1 to 2, and then potentially 3 in 3 weeks. Not ideal, but its a difficult one for the GAA to schedule when you've provincial championships of much different sizes

It does make the next game very important though. You do not want to be losing that and having to play a do or die game 7 days later against a team thats won the previous round. You also strongly risk meeting the likes of Kerry, and the 3 games in 3 weeks did no favours last year where they were flat as a pancake in the QF. Much easier to go into a QF direct as a top seed and get a break between games