Galway GAA discussion thread

TCDStudent1 · 29-03-2015 05:28PM

gilberto_eire wrote: »

No score for 20mins with a gale at our backs.

Cant even get a shot in their half as we haven't managed to win one ball in their.
They have a lot back, but that's our own fault for playing against a wind and letting them pile their defence in the second half.

A short summer again this year as he won't learn anything and lads like Regan will be back in again the next day no doubt.

I was at the Dublin - Limerick match last night. Dublin are a million miles ahead of Galway at the moment.

WallyGUFC · 29-03-2015 05:31PM

Truly embarrassing stuff. No pace, no skill, no game intelligence. The players aren't there obviously and all of this compounded by the ridiculous decision to give Cunningham another year. Awful.

29-03-2015 05:31PM

gilberto_eire wrote: »

The way we played there I don't think we'd even get to 13 if they didn't score for the entire half... certainly not without goals anyway as we're consistent poor scorers.

I was feeling a tad foolish for saying this after 48minutes but low and behold they went and surpassed that by not even breaking 12.

Roll on 2016 and hopefully a new beginning under someone with a bit of passion and cop on.

Absolutely clueless and playing a 1B team.

Davys Fits · 29-03-2015 05:38PM

Galway don't appear to have any game plan. Up and down the centre long aimless shots. They need some freshness either on the field or on the sideline.

29-03-2015 05:39PM

WallyGUFC wrote: »

Truly embarrassing stuff. No pace, no skill, no game intelligence. The players aren't there obviously and all of this compounded by the ridiculous decision to give Cunningham another year. Awful.

I don't think we're as bad as we're showing under him.

Look at the selection of Regan yet again, and he obviously knows as he's subbed him off at HT but he just continues to wipe the slate clean once the game is over.

It was also pointed out that Hansbury and Killeen wouldn't provide anything in the FB line.

Tannion is too slow for midfield(can't shoot either hence his failure to last as a HF and your midfield need that trait) and in the first half we had a massive contingent of slow players in the middle sector with Tannion, Glynn, Cooney, Canning out there.

When he's picking players who cant win their own ball in a 1v1 it's senseless to play against the wind and let the opposition crowd the defence with even more numbers to exploit that.

The only way when he leaves.

2013 and 2014 we weren't far of winning 0 championship games as Laois were unlucky on both occasions(I was at both), I don't think any other manager could achieve less than that.

29-03-2015 05:40PM

WallyGUFC wrote: »

Truly embarrassing stuff. No pace, no skill, no game intelligence. The players aren't there obviously and all of this compounded by the ridiculous decision to give Cunningham another year. Awful.

Fair play to Waterford deserving winners and a team most definitely on the up but its not like we've been beaten by serious all-ireland contenders for 2015.

What you say says it all. We watch every year as we fall further and further off the pace and from what I've seen of our underage teams and club hurling in the last few years, hurling in the county is crumbling. We can add Waterford to the list of teams ahead of us in the pecking order. We're down at 8 or 9 now and its hard to make a case to deny that.

Being honest Canning was anonymous in the 2nd half but who could blame him playing in such a poor quality team totally devoid of any tactical ideas.

We were 8 or 9 points down in the 2nd half and in a couple of instances our full forward line were back in our own full back line. We really made heroes out of a lot of the Waterford lads driving in ball to a shambolic full forward line. Simple clean up operation.

Hurling in the county needs a radical overhaul, we are miles behind on basic skills, take out 2012 and we've never got past even the quarter final in the last 10 years yet we continue to bury our head in the stands. I'm not going to round on any player but there is no serious hurling county who'd have 5 or 6 of those Galway lads playing today.

Cunningham and his setup are clueless but the problems run much deeper and while a tactically sound manager would improve us we have to go back to a root and branch review of hurling in the county.

In the meantime, at least we'll only have to watch for 2 days in the summer, at most 3 if we get a lucky qualifier draw.

T0001 · 29-03-2015 05:53PM

T0001 wrote: »

Promotion is now realistically out of reach for the footballers, having done the maths it is infact impossible.

I made an error here, there is one possible way Galway can get promoted but it would involve some seriously unlikely results next week:

1. Westmeath beat Roscommon
2. Meath and Cavan draw
3. Laois beat Down by 6+ points
4. Galway beat Kildare by 6+ points

This results in 4 teams tied on 8 at the top, Down, Meath Galway and Cavan, when points difference comes into it as per above permutations:

Meath: +14: 8
Galway: +6: 8
Down: +5: 8
Cavan: +3: 8
Laois: +6: 7
Roscommon: +4: 7
Westmeath: -21: 6
Kildare: -12: 4

Meath and Galway qualify, but tbf no chance of this happening!

O.A.P · 29-03-2015 06:01PM

I thought that was shocking and I cant remember the last time I watched a Galway senior hurling team as hopeless as that.
The 70s I suppose they were never on the telly then and unless something changes soon we may as well hope they wont be on again .

Diabhal Beag · 29-03-2015 06:10PM

Nobody played well for Galway. But Waterford were excellent. Moran, Gleeson, Mahoney and Shanahan were excellent. Their fielding was so many lightyears ahead of Galway's that it was unreal.

macslash · 29-03-2015 06:14PM

Watching Galway is embarrassing at this stage. Very demoralising display. Bomb it in and hope for the best seems to be the plan.
Maybe they weren't too pushed for this game but I don't know. Very tough to watch.

Utopia Parkway · 29-03-2015 06:23PM

The hurlers were absolutely hopeless. Completely tactically unprepared for Waterford's blanket defensive system that they've played all during the league. Galway firing down high ball on an outnumbered forward line. Was never in favour of Cunningham getting a new term. Galway play the crudest most basic brand of hurling under him. Just launching high ball down the field and ignoring free players who are closer. We're now known as a team of mullockers under him. Our skill levels have gone down the toilet. Obviously the problems go much deeper than just the management of the senior team but in the short term he needs to go.

I mean I don't like singling players out but he picks James Regan to start nearly every game. Regan invariably gets subbed off in nearly every game and he still manages to start the next game. Doing the same thing over and over and hoping for different results is the definition of losing the head.

redlead · 29-03-2015 07:03PM

gilberto_eire wrote: »

Absolutely clueless and playing a 1B team.

That's the type of foolish arrogance that has Galway losing games in this manner. Waterford had two wins in the league last year including a handy win against Galway. The same points tally that Tipp and Dublin ended with. Galway had two wins and a draw. Waterford ended up getting relegated but there was very little between the teams. The current format of the league is a joke. If you think that you are entitled to beat a "1B team" you had a rude awakening today.

Most knowledgeable Galway GAA fans don't have that attitude thankfully. Galway are much better than what they showed today (bad teams don't beat Kilkenny and Clare) but have a lot of work to do.

29-03-2015 07:07PM

redlead wrote: »

That's the type of foolish arrogance that has Galway losing games in this manner. Waterford had two wins in the league last year including a handy win against Galway. The same points tally that Tipp and Dublin ended with. Galway had two wins and a draw. Waterford ended up getting relegated but there was very little between the teams. The current format of the league is a joke. If you think that you are entitled to beat a "1B team" you had a rude awakening today.

Very true. Galway should have no reason to believe they are better than Waterford but the evidence of 1A v 1B games over the last couple of years indicates that the 1A team should have the advantage at this stage given that Galway have played 5 games against the top teams and Waterford only played 2 (3 at a push) games against good sides.

Pearlstone · 29-03-2015 07:57PM

Cunningham in his fourth year with his second set of selectors (third if you include his under 21 stint) and we still have no 3 or 6 and he persists with numerous players on both team and squad who will never have the required qualities for inter county hurling. it looks like he just wants the job for the sake of having it. We are going backwards at a rate of knots. I am despondent.

29-03-2015 08:48PM

redlead wrote: »

....That's the type of foolish arrogance.....
Most knowledgeable Galway GAA fans.......

I called them what they were... "a 1B team" nothing more or less and I'm not bothered how it happened... Not like it changes the fact.

As for the second part.... Yawnnnnn

MfMan · 29-03-2015 09:05PM

I don't rate Regan, but why sub him at half-time when he was playing in a FF line where no ball was going in against a gale?

As per last week's discussion, how many balls did Glynn field in the air? How many fell off him? What was his sum contribution to Galway's effort today?

Mountainlad · 29-03-2015 09:09PM

Not trying to rub salt or stir here lads but it was very disappointing to see Cathal Mannion feigning injury trying to get a player in trouble in the second half.

Was a pretty abject performance by Galway, thought yed tear away after the first ten minutes but to only score 0-2 points in the last 20 is very poor given the gale that was there. Has Cunninghams backroom team changed much in the last few years?

Wasn't Canning at all, my apologies bad form to be sullying his name.

29-03-2015 09:16PM

.

Mountainlad · 29-03-2015 09:32PM

I know the incident you were on about but was too far away to see what went on. Not trying to get into a "my team is cleaner than yours" debate, just really can't stand diving. I'll say no more

dartsfan · 30-03-2015 04:49AM

Mountainlad wrote: »

Not trying to rub salt or stir here lads but it was very disappointing to see Joe Canning feigning injury trying to get a player in trouble in the second half.

Was a pretty abject performance by Galway, thought yed tear away after the first ten minutes but to only score 0-2 points in the last 20 is very poor given the gale that was there. Has Cunninghams backroom team changed much in the last few years?

It's changed completely since 2012 with Eugene Cloonan coming on board last year

donnem33 · 30-03-2015 09:29AM

Mountainlad wrote: »

Not trying to rub salt or stir here lads but it was very disappointing to see Joe Canning feigning injury trying to get a player in trouble in the second half.

Was a pretty abject performance by Galway, thought yed tear away after the first ten minutes but to only score 0-2 points in the last 20 is very poor given the gale that was there. Has Cunninghams backroom team changed much in the last few years?

After scoring 5 unanswered points in the first 8 mins of the second half to reduce the lead to 4 points - I thought they would drive on and win comfortably. How they went from playing nice neat crisp passes finding a man in open space and scoring to lobbing in big hopeless balls in to a very crowded full forward line is beyond me!!

I have defended cunningham and believed continuity would be good for the team, after yestersdays tactical performance I dont think he should be at the helm anymore. I dont like to critise players as I know the effort they put in is phenomenal but to pick players like kileen, mcinerney, tannion, cooney, regan consistently is getting to be a bit of a joke. Bit strong athletes they may well be, but intercounty standard hurlers they are not. They give away far too many needless frees and are just not good enough. Although andy smith is playing well lately - i would include him in that list too- always good for giving away at least 4 or 5 needless frees a game.

Does anyone know the reason as to why greg lally didnt start? if he was good enough to come on in the 2nd half, he must have been good enough to start! I would liked to have seen daithi burke played yesterday aswell.

davehedgehog · 30-03-2015 10:13AM

was in waterford yesterday, was very obvious that they had no plan to counteract the mass defence that waterford had despite all the talk of it before the match.

In the first half
Players were trying to run through half forward line only to get swallowed up by 3 or 4 defenders. Galway had one extra man in defence in but there were huge amounts of free space that the waterford lads ran into and picked off a massive amount of scores. The galway FF line were spectators and were wasted inside as nothing made it in to them. The few balls that did go in were cleared out again just as quick

In the 2nd half
Kept pumping the long ball into glynn when waterford had all the extra men standing beside him. Mgmt were giving orders not to shoot from distance but given the conditions and the amount of ball wasted into a FF line they should have just kept taking pot shots or at least get the likes of canning into good position out the field to shoot. To be fair to the players they fought hard for ball but when they got it they didnt know what to do with it and couldnt figure a way to turn all of the posession they got in the half back line and midfield into scores. When Galway had Pauric Mannion as sweeper in 2nd half they cleared everything but Maurice shanahan came into it when he was 1 on 1 with Hanbury after mannion was moved out and he held up a lot of ball.

Galway have 9 weeks, (incl 2 rounds of club matches) to get something going

On waterford, they fought hard and now play Tipp. Tipp have the players to pick up scores from distance without engaging the mass defence and Eamonn O'Shea is a lot more tactically astute than the Galway lads so I'd expect him to come up with something to unlock that defence.

homeofhurling · 30-03-2015 05:56PM

you would worry for Galway going into their opener with the Dubs in a few weeks time, they have great hurlers but they don't seem to be pulling with the man who is over them. plus after 4 years Anthony Cunningham still has not a settle full back or centre back for Galway and thats alot of their problem.

T0001 · 30-03-2015 07:07PM

Galway need to play off their FF. I think this is the key role for the hurlers. This needs to be a player who is clinical and skillful. The likes of Joe Canning or Connor Cooney who has proven themselves as sharp shooters (almost) would be well fitted to this role. Both have good experience and both can be leaders. Keeping them on the edge of the square and having them coming out a yard or two to colllect the passes could provide badly needed scores including badly needed goals for Galway. G

iven the lack of pace in the team, this idea of running at the defence with slow players is pointless and usually results in turnovers and overlaps.

It would require player the usual 1-3-3-2-3-3 formation which Galway tend to abandon in games favoring a 1-3-4-3-2-2 or a 1-3-4-4-2-1 formation which clearly doesn't work.

It's gonna be a tough summer for galway hurling and I cn't imagine the lads making a QF this year unless they really pull-themselves together and start performing - 12 points is not a good score in a league QF... Given that the last few years Galway have been the team scoring the most goals in the league, this year they got 4 goals in 6 games - speaks volumes in itself

homeofhurling · 30-03-2015 07:46PM

i have found over the years that Canning playing fullforward suits the teams that play them as they would put a man back in front of Joe, and then Joe has to go out the field and sents in balls where he should be, untill Galway get a good settle midfield and half forward line Joe has to stay out field.

citykat · 31-03-2015 12:58AM

Mountainlad wrote: »

Not trying to rub salt or stir here lads but it was very disappointing to see Cathal Mannion feigning injury trying to get a player in trouble in the second half.

Was a pretty abject performance by Galway, thought yed tear away after the first ten minutes but to only score 0-2 points in the last 20 is very poor given the gale that was there. Has Cunninghams backroom team changed much in the last few years?

Wasn't Canning at all, my apologies bad form to be sullying his name.

I missed this the first time I watched the match but looking at it again tonight Mannion wasn't as bad as you make out. In fairness he wasn't rolling around. IMO the helmet pull by Mahony during the schmozzle early in the second half was far worse and far more dangerous when a lad is on the ground and can't defend himself.

Mountainlad · 31-03-2015 01:46AM

citykat wrote: »

I missed this the first time I watched the match but looking at it again tonight Mannion wasn't as bad as you make out. In fairness he wasn't rolling around. IMO the helmet pull by Mahony during the schmozzle early in the second half was far worse and far more dangerous when a lad is on the ground and can't defend himself.

He went down holding his helmet after getting a slight nudge to his shoulder, mid rift at worst with no force. And he rolled once. The screen is zoomed in for the tv so you don't see it, but Gavin told him get up and as soon as he turned away he was back up on his feet no evidence of physical distress. It's not dangerous at all, but while I've seen some diving and that's one thing, I've not seen to much evidence of trying to get the opposition in trouble. Aidan O mahony v Cork in an all ireland semi is one that comes to mind, 2008 I'd say it was and for balance Eoin McGrath did it against Tipp one time I think (possibly 2008). It's just not on and it was exactly what I made it out to be, feigning injury to get another player in trouble.

On Philip Mahony, he would want to be careful going for the helmet. Silly thing to do and by the letter off the law it would be hard to argue if more action was taken. In his defense, Lally was tussling with his younger brother and he initially went to try and pull him away by the arm but shouldn't have gone near the helmet.

Again, I'm not playing "Clean Team, Dirty Team" here.

T0001 · 01-04-2015 07:22PM

Joe Canning (26), Andy Smith (31) and Fergal Moore (32) have been released from the Galway Senior Hurling Panel after altercations with management. The County Board made the statement earlier this evening. Neither management nor the player involved have made a comment. A statement is expected from the Team before the weekend.

Read the article here on Galway Bay FM website.

T0001 · 04-04-2015 07:34PM

Hard loss to take. Outstanding game of football and 6-25 scored between the teams. Great finishing by both sides although were it not for some silly shooting by Ros they could have won it by more. The winning of the game was smothering Comer at the edge of the square, had he gotten all the balls that went in he could have finished with 1-5 and possibly another goal. Fair play to Branning getting a goal at the death for Galway to give us hope, but alas.... Roscommon are an outstanding team and it will be hard for anyone to beat them.

Some big stars on the future on show today and some lads that should be getting a call from Kevin Walsh anyday soon.

Anyways a good performance by Galway just a pity to fall short

04-04-2015 08:07PM

While it was disappointing to lose, must say this is the sort of game that is badly needed in football. Good evening's entertainment. I doubt if anyone didn't enjoy it. Big crowd, as usual the Galway support was well outnumbered on home turf.

Roscommon were deserving winners. Galway missed the window of opportunity early in the 2nd half when they kicked a couple of bad wides when 2 points up.

Unfortunately the lack of quality backs in the county shows little sign of improving. Granted it was a good Roscommon forward division but 2 of the goals were far too soft especially the first which got Roscommon a foothold.

The tactic of kicking direct into Comer was effective enough but when Roscommon put 3 on him in the 2nd half we didn't respond by getting the bodies in and around him to do any damage.

Roscommon won't go down as badly as they did last year in the AI series and will put up a decent score against anyone but Galway exposed plenty of frailties they'll have to fix if they want to progress any further.

Galway GAA discussion thread

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