Galway outclass Limerick to book their league final spot

Galway 1-21 Limerick 1-11

It’s no fun watching a game when only one team shows up, Limerick probably preferring this was played somewhere behind closed doors in Galway rather than in the full glare of the Gaelic Grounds.

In the end it delivered nothing more than Galway’s jaunty passage into next Sunday’s Allianz Hurling League final, where All-Ireland champions Tipperary will presumably present a more thorough contest. They were 10 points the better here, hardly raising a gallop or once using the whip.

For the crowd of 9,523 – mostly from Limerick, naturally – it was a strangely muted afternoon. Their enthusiasm filled the air but rarely transferred to the field, Limerick’s first-half goal their only bright moment in an otherwise total eclipse of the heart.

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Not that Galway weren’t impressive: eight different scorers, including 1-4 from the excellent Conor Cooney, while also limiting Limerick’s forward line to three points from play. Manager Michael Donoghue conceded his team “were coming into a bit a form” – which is about as revelatory as he’s has been all season.

“Obviously we’re delighted to be getting another competitive game next week, and that’ll bring us closer to the championship,” said O’Donoghue. “We’ve been keeping the heads down and taking it one game at a time, but now that we are in it [the final], we are really glad to be in it.

“As I said during the week, there are only two national titles you can go for. In that regard, it is nice to be there. Our aim at the outset of the league was to go as far as we can and to get us as close as possible to our first championship game.”

Joe Canning matched Cooney with his 0-7, six frees, but was actually pretty quiet, hitting four wides in the first half, and not scoring from play until the last 10 minutes. Cathal Mannion finished with 0-4 and set up Cooney’s goal, and David Burke and Johnny Coen took complete ownership of midfield as the game wore on.

“I thought Limerick would be motivated for it, which they were,” added O’Donoghue. “In fairness to them, they came back at us in the second half, then Conor’s goal came at an opportune time for us, gave us a bit of daylight from there to the end.

“We are still looking at different players for different positions so it is encouraging in that regard, to only be conceding three points [to the Limerick forwards]. We are delighted with the win but there is still plenty of work to be done.”

More mature

It puts Galway back in the league final for the first time since 2010, and in some ways sends Limerick back to the drawing board.

Manager John Kiely was softly critical of his team’s performance, and while not helped by the loss of defenders Declan Hannon (on 16 minutes) and Séamus Hickey (37 minutes), it was arguably their worst performance of the league

“It’s two-pronged,” said Kiely “In the overall we are obviously disappointed with the performance today. The boys tried hard, but things didn’t come off for them.

“Simple things like hand-passes, and stick passes, and dropped balls. I can’t put my finger on exactly why that was. We put a lot of effort in, the last few weeks, building up to this game. And that is the challenge for Limerick hurling to put successive performances together. And that would have been a bit easier with a more mature bunch of players. But it is a challenge at the moment for this particular group.”

Trailing by five points at half-time, despite scoring the first goal on 20 minutes, thanks to a deft close-range kicked finish from William O’Donoghue,  Limerick were thoroughly outclassed by the end, their final wide tally 17 – another sore point of the afternoon.

Shane Dowling, their top marksman with 0-5, looked frustrated all afternoon, flinging his hurl aide in frustration as early as the 25th minute after twice giving possession away to Galway.

Seem flat

“The boys did seem flat today for some reason,” added Kiely. “But I can’t fault the guys for effort. They tried their hearts out and Galway were exceptional, powerful in every regard. Any ball that we got in, they spoiled it. They picked it up, brought it out, simple distribution, all of their passes came off. They were clinical, absolutely superb today. Maybe it’s not shame to us to go down to a team who played such quality hurling.”

Galway started in good spirits, having come from 10 points down in their quarter-final against Waterford, and duly picked up where they left off that day – scoring seven points in the opening 15 minutes.

There is plenty of muscle in the Limerick attack, only none of it showed here, Graeme Mulcahy and David Dempsey replaced, with Barry Nash and John Fitzgibbon actually adding three of the better points off the bench.

“We just have to go back regroup, get our heads down, work hard again, and get ready for the Munster championship and Clare in Thurles in June,” added Kiely.

“Galway are further down the road than we are. These are a team that were beaten by Tipperary by a point in the All-Ireland semi-final last year and they probably feel aggrieved that they didn’t win an All-Ireland the year before.

Should be fun watching that contest next Sunday.

GALWAY: C Callanan; A Tuohy, J Hanbury, A Harte; P Mannion (0-1), G McInerney, Daithi Burke; J Coen (0-1), David Burke (capt) (0-1); J Cooney,  J Canning (0-7, six frees), P Brehony; C Whelan (0-2), C Mannion (0-4), C Cooney (1-4). Subs: T Monaghan (0-1) for Brehony (53 mins), P Killeen for Hanbury (54 mins), J Flynn for Whelan (66 mins), S Loftus for David Burke (67 mins).

LIMERICK: N Quaid; R English, R McCarthy, M Casey; D Byrnes (capt) (0-1), D Hannon, S Hickey; A Dempsey, W O'Donoghue (1-0); S Dowling (0-5, four frees), D Dempsey (0-1), G Hagarty; C Lynch (0-1), K Hayes, G Mulcahy. Subs: G O'Mahony for Hannon (16 mins, inj), S Finn for Hickey (38 mins, inj), B Nash (0-2) for Mulcahy (48 mins), S Ryan for A Dempsey, J Fitzgibbon (0-1) for D Dempsey (both 52 mins).

Referee: Paul O'Dwyer (Carlow)