Donegal 0-15 v 1-14 Galway
Donegal’s dream run in the All-Ireland Championship is over.
Jim McGuinness’ men fell just short in a hotly contested Croke Park contest where chances were aplenty for Donegal, but they lacked a clinical edge.
The game started out with plenty of end-to-end action, each side slotting over several high-quality scores.
The only goal of the first half came when Paul Conroy under-hit a shot that dropped just short of goal, and bounced into the back of the net, as Donegal keeper Shaun Patton was unsighted and misjudged a tricky bounce.
At the other end Michael Langan had several superb efforts, with some good scores from the likes of Oisin Gallen and Ciaran Thompson to drag the game level.
Both sides showed real quality with a number of fantastic scores knocked over from range – it was 0-10 to 1-07 at the break.
The second half had several end-to-end moments to start out with before both sides slowed things down coming into the final quarter – Donegal notably having several efforts drop just short and into the hands of the Galway keeper.
Donegal were left chasing after some great Galway scores, but Donegal’s worst attacking spell of the game came at the worst time, failing to register a score in the final 15 minutes of play with numerous close wides.
One mustn’t forget that despite the dissapointment, no one 12 months ago would have had Donegal even making it to the All-Ireland Series, nevermind claiming an Ulster title, taking Galway to the brink and falling two points short of an All-Ireland Final.
This is just year one of the Jim McGuinness project – we’ll take that for a “rebuilding year”.
