Connor Gleeson’s late free wins Galway third Connacht title in a row

Connacht SFC final: Galway 0-16 Mayo 0-15

The shifting sands of this old Connacht rivalry trickled in Galway’s direction at Pearse Stadium this weekend. A late flurry of frees brought the provincial champions from two down in injury time to a the tightest of victories and secured a first Nestor Cup three-in-a-row for 40 years.

A late attempt by Cillian O’Connor to rescue things before the final whistle sailed wide.

It was a change in recent relations between the counties, as under Kevin McStay’s management, Mayo were unbeaten by their neighbours in five matches, including last year’s league final and All-Ireland preliminary quarter-final.

This Connacht final had also been heading to the same conclusion but Mayo lost their grip on the contest at the very end and Galway, never totally adrift, gratefully stepped up to take advantage.

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The primary influence was Damien Comer, back to his rambunctious best, kicking two points, providing one assist, getting fouled for four converted frees and in the 66th minute, with the temperature rising, he came out to claim a superb mark at centrefield.

If some of the deciding frees were contentious calls by David Gough – Conor Loftus, imprisoned by Matthew Tierney and Paul Conroy at the very end, may have had a case for the free going his way – but McStay wasn’t pushing that line at the end.

“David Gough is the best referee in the country by a mile. There were two teams out there driving into each other. It was hard, physical stuff and a very difficult match to referee because both teams wanted so badly to win the cup. We have no issues.”

It was a sweet endgame for Pádraic Joyce, who lost Connacht finals to Mayo in his first two years, when there was no second acts because of Covid. Having come so close to winning an All-Ireland two years ago, Galway have spent the past two years trying to rediscover that form while dealing with a litany of injuries.

This year had been a struggle to stay afloat in Division One but they managed it. An underwhelming semi-final performance against Sligo had left virtually no evidence that they could win this – the best hope being the perennial unpredictability of the fixture.

Joyce felt that his team had never been out of contention.

“I know it is easy to say now [but] we felt we were always in the game. We started the second half in a welter, then obviously we missed a couple of scores too.

“Any time we fumbled the ball in the first half, Mayo punished us really well. They got seven points in the first half, five came from balls we dropped short or got blocked down the far side. Scores have to come out of somewhere, the way our lads stuck at it, kept going, we are really proud of them. I’m delighted for them.”

Before the start, Galway made changes, bringing in Kieran Molloy for John Maher and Cathal Sweeney for Shane Walsh. Both changes were reversed by half-time and Maher and Walsh had a good impact on the rest of the match. There was also good news in the return to the match-day panel of 2022 Footballer of the Year nominee Cillian McDaid.

Mayo replaced injured captain Paddy Durcan with Eoghan McLaughlin.

Galway looked the sharper throughout, posing more immediate menace going forward and bringing a strong conversion rate of over 70 per cent. They also created a great goal chance but Maher’s strong shot was blocked by Rory Brickenden and the follow-up by goalkeeper Colm Reape.

Mayo though had more control, possession and platform. They counter-attacked strongly and with pace but were wasteful with the opportunities created.

The contest moved in blocks, an even first quarter, Mayo shading the second for a half-time lead, 0-7 to 0-5. A strong Galway restart regained the lead but Mayo were three points clear by the 53rd minute, 0-11 to 0-8.

As McStay lamented afterwards, his team didn’t seem able to kick it on from that.

They had a couple of chances of landing a wounding blow when Gleeson – who had “one or two hairy moments,” according to Joyce – was caught out of goal but the cover got back so that first, Matthew Ruane had to content himself with a point and then a deflection from Donnacha McHugh went for a 45 that became a free, converted by Ryan O’Donoghue.

The Galway manager paid tribute to his goalkeeper, whose grandmother died a few days ago but who turned up to training when told to take the week off. Joyce was asked did he feel that they were now beginning to gather for a serious challenge.

“Look, you hope so. If the lads can bring that performance in the last 15 or 20 minutes to the full 70 against Derry, we will be more than happy.”

On the subject of criticisms, especially on social media, he was characteristically plain speaking.

“There are people out there – they can just pull out their phones and send a message on social media and it is all over the place. Unfortunately, that is the world that’s in it.

“We know there is a lot of gobsh***s out there. We let it in the left ear and out the right ear. I say to the lads, all that matters is what is in our four walls. If we can get ourselves right, we’ll have no one to blame at the end of the year only ourselves if we don’t get where we want.”

GALWAY: C Gleeson (0-2, two frees); J McGrath, S Fitzgerald, J Glynn; D McHugh, J Daly (capt.), L Silke; P Conroy, C Darcy; J Heaney (0-1), S Kelly, K Molloy; R Finnerty (0-8, five frees), D Comer (0-2), C Sweeney. Subs: J Maher for Molloy (21 mins), S Walsh (0-3, one free) for Sweeney (23 mins), M Tierney for Heaney 53 mins), S Mulkerrin for Fitzgerald (65 mins), D O’Flaherty for Daly (71 mins).

MAYO: C Reape; J Coyne, D McBrien, R Brickenden; E McLaughlin, D McHugh (0-1), S Callinan; J Carney, M Ruane (0-3); S Coen (capt), F Boland (0-1), J Flynn; T Conroy (0-2), A O’Shea, R O’Donoghue (0-6, four frees, 1m). Subs: D O’Connor for Boland (46 mins), C O’Connor (0-1) for O’Shea (54 mins), E Hession for Flynn (58 mins), C Loftus for Coyne (66 mins), B Tuohy for Carney (71 mins).

Referee: D Gough (Meath).