So now we have it. Galway will play Armagh in the All-Ireland final, the first time in the history of the game that the two sides will face off in a decider.
And after a weekend of pull and thrust and to and fro, it feels only right that this is what we’re left with. No point in calling it a wide-open championship if you don’t end up with a novel pairing in the final.
Galway came through here by essentially outstaying Donegal. Their 1-14 to 0-15 victory felt like one of those 800m races in the Olympics where everybody runs as fast as they can for as long as they can. Eventually, as you come around the final bend, those who can keep up the pace begin to separate themselves from those who desperately want to. Donegal got shelled out the back and were spent by the end.
The game was level on 61 minutes but Galway were able to find two more points as Donegal’s shooting fell off a cliff. Jim McGuinness really only needed to quote their accuracy stats to tell the story – 10 scores from 14 chances in the first half, five from 14 in the second. They got themselves into position to make the final and just couldn’t sustain it.
“I think a part of that has to be down to fatigue and decision-making,” McGuinness said. “The batteries ran a wee bit lower and then what you do normally or naturally becomes a wee bit more difficult. We sort of lost that flow that we had and that we’ve had all year.”
As McGuinness spoke, you could feel a real sense of an opportunity squandered. To play in an All-Ireland semi-final with Dublin gone, with Kerry gone, with Armagh waiting – those chances don’t come around too often in life.
“Definitely. People talk about Year One and all that – there’s no such thing. No such thing. It’s this year. And this was an opportunity this year. We had an opportunity and we felt we were in a really good position at half-time. We felt if we could have kept it together and pushed on for 15 minutes that we could potentially have seen the game out. It didn’t pan out for us that way.
“We’ll have to take that on the chin and take the lessons from it. But you’re right – 2024 was on the line today. Armagh grasped that nettle yesterday and they’re in the final. We’ve played them three times this year and we didn’t lose. Good luck to them and good luck to Galway.”
In the end, Galway came through because they were that bit stronger and maybe a bit older and wiser too. They’ve won an All-Ireland semi-final before and have built impressively on the experience of two years ago.
If you had told anyone watching Galway in 2022 that they’d make their next final without any of Shane Walsh, Damien Comer, Cillian McDaid or Seán Kelly on the pitch at the end, there’s zero chance they’d have guessed at 2024 as the year in question.
But sheer necessity has pushed Pádraic Joyce to panel-beat his squad to make it roadworthy for this kind of terrain. Since the 2022 final, Galway have played 29 games in league and championship – Walsh and Comer have played a full 70 minutes together in just two of them and haven’t managed it in 14 months. Kelly hasn’t played a full game since the Connacht final in early May and didn’t feature here at all. For Galway to keep the ship not just upright but relentlessly steaming on in those circumstances is some achievement.
“I think the development of our squad is a big one,” Joyce said afterwards. “The impact probably wasn’t there in 2022. But it is there now.
“I think we were a more battle-hardened team coming down the stretch. If you look at the games we played – Mayo in the Connacht final. The Sligo game obviously we were in trouble but we found a way to win it. And then we have had Derry, Armagh, Westmeath and Dublin the last day.
“Whereas Donegal – the last two games they have coasted through probably Clare and Louth easier than they would have liked. It showed in the game on Saturday night even – Armagh were the more battle-hardened team and they found a way to stick it out. I think that was the difference. We are probably a little bit more developed than Donegal, to be honest.”
So on they go. Armagh in the final, anyone’s ball game. Joyce had a bit of mischief about him in the press conference when someone asked about their game a month ago in Markievicz Park when the two sides fought each other to a standstill. Did he believe they’d be seeing each other in the final?
“Well, if you ask Kieran McGeeney next week what was texted to him that night, that will answer the question for you,” Joyce smiled.
“Lookit, we’ve played Armagh three times in the last three years or whatever, There’s been a point – we won by a point, they won by a point. It was a draw the last day. So lookit, there’s only a kick of a ball in it. And it’s going to be a novel pairing in a final. I think football needs this. Two teams are going to go at it hammer and tongs. May the best team win.”
Amen to that.
