Damien Comer leads from front as Galway gain momentum

Damien Comer may not be the prime candidate to run over Galway’s football qualifier history. He was just seven years old when Galway came through the first ever qualifier series, in 2001, to actually win the All-Ireland outright, and they haven’t come close in the 14 years since.

But there is a history to the All-Ireland football qualifiers which has a tendency to repeat itself, and Comer has just played a little hand in that: his second-half goal helped seal Sunday’s victory over Armagh at the Athletic Grounds, which was actually Galway’s first away win in the football qualifiers since that 2001 All-Ireland winning run.

It’s still too soon to be drawing any further similarities between the two seasons, although Galway’s qualifier run certainly appears to be gathering momentum.

Sunday’s victory over Armagh was followed with the bonus prize of a home draw against Derry, at Pearse Stadium this Saturday, and for Comer, there is clearly the sense now that Galway’s games can’t come soon enough.

“Of course, you can only look to the next game but we have aspirations to go really far with this team,” he says.

“You hear it said sometimes as well that Galway don’t have the bottle anymore, but I think we’ve been showing plenty of that. Especially to finish out Armagh in Armagh.

“It’s all about recovery now between games. We don’t mind that and we’re happy to be out again this weekend, and we’ll take lots of confidence from beating Armagh in the way we did.”

Galway’s three-point victory certainly wasn’t comfortable (they went the last 24 minutes of the game without a score), but they got over line first.

So, it was their first away win in the football qualifiers since they beat Wicklow in Aughrim (3-12 to 1-9) in 2001. Galway did beat Tipperary last summer, although that was played at a neutral venue, at O’Connor Park in Tullamore.

Dismal run

Between 2006-2012, Galway endured a dismal qualifier run, losing six out of six (against Westmeath, Meath, Donegal, Wexford, Meath again, and Antrim). Before Sunday, their overall record was played 16, won eight, lost eight, and Comer singles out Galway manager Kevin Walsh as one of the main reasons why they’ve got back to winning ways.

Walsh was still Galway’s standout midfielder when they made history during that 2001 qualifier run, and Walsh clearly understands the value in making the absolute most of second chances, especially after coming so close to beating Mayo in the Connacht semi-final.

“Kevin has instilled a lot of belief into this team,” says Comer. “He knows how good we are. He’s just trying to feed it though the team, and we’re starting to believe how good we are.

“We’ve shown it by putting it up to some of the best teams in challenge matches lately, and now in the qualifiers as well. We still feel that if it wasn’t for a few unlucky breaks against Mayo we’d be in a Connacht final.

“And that was a real suckerpunch. We felt that game was there for the taking and just a few of the breaks, a few mistakes, cost us. You need those on the day.”

Derry will come to Salthill on Saturday with plenty of momentum of their own, picking up from the narrow defeat to Donegal in their Ulster semi-final with a convincing win over Wexford at the weekend.

Similar style

Manager Brian McIvor has been talking up the improvement of his attacking duet of Eoin Bradley and Cailean O’Boyle, although again, Sunday’s victory over Ulster opposition of similar style can only serve Galway well.

“That’s it,” says Comer. “It’s never easy, coming up past the Border, with them having all the home support. And I thought maybe that support would stand to them, when they got it back to three points, but thankfully the boys around the middle [Thomas Flynn and Fintan O Curraoin] played some exceptional football. They got their hands on a lot of ball, cleaned up a few breaks and just killed the game really”

Survived

Still, without Comer’s goal, Galway might not have survived, and the 21-year-old admits it wasn’t entirely planned either, as he latched on to a free from Paul Conroy, which dropped short, allowing him to fist the ball over his head and into the Armagh net

“Well, you never know, do you? I suppose Paul won’t be too happy with his free-taking, on that occasion.

“Once it dropped short I think I caught the Armagh defence asleep a little, and once it went in the direction off the goal, I would have been happy with the point. When it rattled the net I was delighted.”