Derry just wanted one more score

Hang outside the Galway or Derry dressing-room? John O'Mahony or Eamonn Coleman? Hard to know which manager could better assess the course of yesterday's semi-final.

Coleman is caught between the two, so his voice gets aired first. And, though Galway may have won by three, he reckons one point could have made the difference.

"Well it was a funny game," he says. "For the first half and maybe 12 or 14 minutes of the second half we were completely on top. We were winning by five points and Galway were just hanging on. I knew if we could get another score we'd have won the match.

"But we couldn't. We were five points up, but we just couldn't make it six. God, we had the chance to finish them off. But we didn't and we can only blame ourselves."

Rarely will second-half scoring sequences be so glaringly split. Galway go 21 minutes without a score and then finish with a flurry. Derry hit four in succession and then let 17 minutes past before hitting the final score. The consequences were decisive.

"But Galway are a great team with a great tradition and they showed that out there at the end. And we only scored one point in the last 17 minutes and that's not good enough to win an All-Ireland semi-final."

With so many young players embedded in his team, much of that must have come down to inexperience.

"Well, we had the chance to finish the game and we didn't, but they got the vital scores when they needed them. That's it, defeat. You're beaten in an All-Ireland semi-final and that's it, you're finished. You're going nowhere.

"If you are going to get beat I always heard that Croke Park is the place for it to happen. But we should have won here and that's what makes it so hard to take. Maybe Galway will go on and win the All-Ireland and that will be some bit of help."

Time then for one more hard question: will Eamonn Coleman be around next year?

"Well, don't be asking those nasty questions. This team probably came a year too soon, but we should have took our chances while we were here because there's no guarantee you'll be here next year."

John O'Mahony has had a little more time to plan his reaction, yet he too feels that the game was caught from slipping just in time.

"It was a great comeback alright," he begins. "The players did exceptionally well in the last 15 minutes. They found a new gear and it's very difficult to do that. And they pulled through.

"Of course, you never think it was gone because you're not in it to think that way. But I did think that we weren't sparkling on many cylinders. You have to give Derry credit for that, because they didn't allow us to play."

But what's all this about Galway finishing the stronger? Surely the recent history suggests that they should have been the ones holding on to an early lead.

"Well, you can't fall into the trap of thinking that we play all our games the same. If you think back to last year's All-Ireland we were down seven points to one after 20 minutes and we pulled it back to draw. I don't want to criticise anyone, but people do jump to all kinds of conclusions.

"Obviously, the fact that we had started a lot of our games well meant that they were out to combat that and did it well. But then I would credit our lads for digging it out when the pressure was on."

Single scores such as the goal from substitute Matthew Clancy may be regarded as pivotal, but O'Mahony is only interested in paying tribute to his whole squad.

"In today's game an awful lot of things did go wrong. We were pulled for over-carrying nine or 10 times and we gave away bad ball, and all kinds of things.

"In the end, the whole squad lifted the game from a situation where they were playing poorly and that's the best tribute I can pay to the team. It's not teams that win All-Irelands it is the squads."

Experience then probably did win out the day, and few men were more experienced on the field than midfielder Kevin Walsh. The old legs take a while longer to spring out of the dressing-room, and he is left with the final words.

"Sure, we thought it was gone, and a long hard year's work was gone down the drain. But it was nice to answer some of the critics as well because we were seven or eight points ahead in other games and allowed teams to come back to a point. This was done the other way, which is pleasing for us.

"At five points down all you can do is keep plugging away and hope it will pay off. And it's nice to win this way before we get to the final. I think it's a nicer way to win from behind, but on Monday morning it's only the result that matters.

Down the hallway, a silence of defeat still hangs over the Derry dressing-room: "Five points up alright," says Enda Muldoon, "and we seemed to be coasting. The Galway heads seemed to have dropped and I think another score would have been the difference. But we're just gutted right now."