Donegal crashed to a 15-point defeat to Galway at Markievicz Park and tamely head for the Championship’s exit door.
Donegal 0-14 Galway 4-17
The dark clouds that crept across the Sligo skies felt like the perfect backdrop as Rory Gallagher’s team were handed their coats and frogmarched to the gates .
Picture caption: Eoin McHugh bursts past Galway’s Cathal Sweeney during Saturday’s game. Picture by Evan Logan
For the first time since 2010, Donegal will not be in Croke Park for an All-Ireland quarter-final as their Championship shuddered to an abrupt halt as Galway soared to a quarter-final meeting with Kerry thanks to a brace of palmed goals by midfielder Johnny Heaney to sit alongside a penalty by Liam Silke.
In stoppage time, Danny Cummins rattled in a fourth Galway goal and the inquest following this, a defeat that was just a point away from the 16-point losses to Cavan in 1946 and Mayo in 2013, won’t be pleasant in Donegal.
The sight of Karl Lacey, on his knees and in tears, could be a pointer for what might follow in the months ahead.
Donegal had to play the last 23 minutes with just 13 men after Michael Murphy and Martin McElhinney were black carded. Murphy was lined in the 42nd minute and, though it was perhaps a tad harsh on the Donegal captain, the more concerning aspect was that Donegal had used their entire quota of six substitutes by that stage.
Donegal also had goalkeeper Mark Anthony McGinley black carded in the move that led to Liam Silke’s 25th minute goal from a penalty and McElhinney walked in the 48th minute.
Murphy sat dejected in the corner of the Donegal dugout by the time the big Donegal crowd in 10,564 attendance were streaming for the gates when Patrick McBrearty saw a 59th minute penalty saved by Bernard Power. McBrearty’s on-the-ground follow-up was kept out by Power, summing up Donegal’s evening of pain.
Galway had full-back Declan Kyne sent off after a push on Patrick McBrearty earned him a second yellow card, just two minutes after his first booking, but it hardly mattered in the grand scheme of things as Kevin Walsh’s men were home and hosed.
Galway had been the subject of some deep, searching interrogation around the Corrib after a damaging defeat to Roscommon in the Connacht final, having earlier dumped Mayo from the provincial race.
Walsh, himself on the receiving end of scrutiny in the west, brought goalkeeper Bernard Power, Armstong and Burke in as late call-ups to his selection – and the Tribesmen delivered an emphatic statement to kill off Donegal’s hopes of making it to Croke Park for a seventh successive All-Ireland quarter-final.
Armstrong and Burke were the central figures in the move that led to the opening Galway goal in the 18th minute. A quick transfer from Burke found Armstrong in a pocket of space and his deft ball to the rear was palmed home by midfielder Heaney.
The house collapsed for Donegal in the 25th minute.
A fumble by the omnipresent Murphy gave Thomas Flynn a passage to goal. Donegal ‘keeper McGinley tripped up the Galway attacker and Silke tucked the penalty past replacement goalkeeper Peter Boyle, with McGinley black-carded for his challenge.
Silke’s kick into Boyle’s bottom left corner left Galway staring into the abyss.
It would get worse still, though, as, in added time at the end of the opening period, as Heaney flicked home again, after Comer and Armstrong combined to get past the feeble Donegal rearguard.
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