As much as Donegal’s collapse was a surprise at Markievicz Park, Galway’s sharp renaissance registered a similar level on the Richter scale.
Galway had been pummelled themselves in the Connacht final, losing by nine points to Roscommon, and the belief was that their season would fate.
Picture caption: Galway manager Kevin Walsh during Saturday’s game. Picture by Evan Logan
But they arrived in Sligo with a score to settle – with themselves as much as with anyone else.
Johnny Heaney lorded the show with a brace of goals and a towering display. Liam Silke, from a penalty, and Danny Cummins, with a thunderous late strike, netted as Galway won by 15 points.
It wasn’t the more aesthetically pleasing stuff that Kevin Walsh, the Galway manager, pointed to, however.
“The movement was much better today and if you were to look at one difference, from what I saw it would probably be the dirty, rotten ball on the ground,” Walsh said after downing 13-man Donegal.
“Even if fellas didn’t catch it first time, they tended to dive in and get a flick with the hand or flick it to somebody else.
“It’s something we would’ve said for the last week, that there’s two ways of going here – bounce back and show character or fade away.
“Since I came in here it’s the first year we’ve got a chance to give a response. We were knocked out the last 12 against Donegal two years ago and didn’t get the chance to come back, and last year again we had to carry the Tipperary defeat through the winter.
“This is the first time in three years they had the chance to come out and put something right. We’ve a lot of work to do for next week, so have the other eight teams, but the character was important today.”
Wounded Galway were seen as a good draw for Donegal, but a nightmare unfolded before Rory Gallagher’s eyes as his side capitulated.
Galway had the game sewn up by half-time, when they led by 11 points, 3-9 to 0-7.
Walsh said: “That little bit of passion was definitely higher from last time.
“It’s something that worked out for us, it’s more about what we do ourselves in our own game. It was more about getting hands on the ball around the middle area, we’ve been quite good coming off the shoulder all year but we didn’t get enough ball last time so we weren’t able to show that.
“It wasn’t necessarily that we went after that, we went after the dirty ball and people to work together in unity and it opened up a good few times in the first half. We were probably a lot more clinical.”
