Galway planning for quick rebound

Interview with John O'Mahony: Keith Duggan finds John O'Mahony disinclined to panic despite Sunday's defeat

Galway manager John O'Mahony yesterday absorbed the news of a do-or-die championship game against east-coast opposition less than 24 hours after exiting from Connacht at the hands of Mayo.

The beaten Connacht champions stayed together to await the news from Sunday evening's qualifying draw. Their pairing with Louth is a game Galway will be heavily favoured to come through but O'Mahony said such is the nature of the system that all qualifying games hold their difficulties.

"I don't think it mattered what county we drew, we still have to get our heads around the fact of the loss against Mayo and to try and get ourselves mentally prepared for a game this weekend. That is not easy but it is the reality of the situation and we have to try and deal with it."

The Galway panel met yesterday evening for a pool session and to discuss where their first championship defeat by Mayo since 1999 leaves them. They will train again tomorrow evening in what will be an abrupt build-up to their next championship outing, a hectic rate of games in comparison to the long lead-up to the championship game.

"We intend sitting down and talking about things and hopefully getting whatever we feel about Sunday out of our hair. Like, we have been in this situation before and we know that we have to pick it up straight away and I suppose that process will begin at this evening's session," O'Mahony remarked.

The nature of Galway's defeat has prompted another round of obituaries on a team that last won the All-Ireland championship in 2001. They were eliminated at the quarter-final stage over the past two seasons, during which they comfortably won the Connacht title. Ironically, the last time they were in the qualifiers, 2001, they went "all the way".

However, since that period, it has been contended that Galway have been in gradual decline and Sunday's second-half performance added fuel to that theory. While O'Mahony had yet to analyse the game, he does not believe Galway are necessarily prone to "disappearing" in games.

"I don't think it is fair to label Galway with that tag in particular. When any team loses the game, it will almost inevitably mean that the other side enjoyed control for at least parts of the game. There were many occasions when the opposite has been true of our team. Even if you take last year's

championship game against Mayo, Galway were in control throughout and slipped into cruise control towards the end.

"Yesterday, we were still in the game with 10 or 15 minutes to go. But I think it was the way that it panned out over that closing period that maybe created that impression. To label it as a routine occurrence in Galway teams, though, is not accurate."

There was enough in Galway's first-half performance, when they played some scintillating football into a strong wind, to suggest that the defending champions had done all the hard work. As it was, Michael Donnellan and Tommy Joyce both had goal opportunities during a rich, early phase of play that might have put a severely lopsided tilt on the scoreboard for a Mayo perspective.

Although the home team responded smoothly to Galway's early scores, the popular theory at half-time was that sharpshooters like Padraic Joyce, Micheál Meehan and Donnellan would revel in the opportunity to launch kicks from distance. However, it emerged afterwards that the wind changed somewhat during the turnaround and was not the advantage it might have been.

Perhaps also, Galway's early start - they hammered Mayo for 1-3 in just six minutes of play - was a double-edged sword.

"No, it was exactly what we were looking for," countered O'Mahony.

"Because we had talked about our starts and we were anxious to make a good impression early on. So the way it worked was ideal from our perspective. At the same time, I wasn't all that worried either when Mayo reeled us back in because when you have a big lead at half-time, it can lead to complacency. But it was nicely poised and definitely, it looked to be there for us. But as I said after the game, I have absolutely no complaints, it was about Mayo in the second half."

Although Kevin Walsh and Gary Fahey made long-awaited returns to Galway colours in Castlebar, the circumstances were not ideal. The quick turnaround does not give them much opportunity to build up further game practice but their availability does strengthen O'Mahony's hand for what should be a rehabilitative game against Louth.