John O'Mahony's desire to talk his team down means that this week has been a bit of a disaster. At a joint media event this week the Galway manager had to endure his counterpart Peter Ford talking about all the pressure being off Sligo and low expectations in the county.

Faced with this and the uncomfortable evidence of the 18-point beating Galway gave the same opposition the last time they met, O'Mahony talked up the competitive trend of matches between the counties and how 2000 was an aberration.

There was a sweet irony about this. O'Mahony explained that he played on the Mayo side that lost in the famous 1975 Connacht final, which marked Sligo's second and last provincial title. But on top of that, O'Mahony has the added frustration of knowing that his talk of aberrations will be seen as merely another act of studied plamás.

Yet he has a point. Prior to the deluge of two years ago, Sligo had established a good record against Galway. In O'Mahony's second year, his team were defending All-Ireland champions when brought to a replay by Sligo.

But when you look at where Sligo might make an impact this weekend, it's hard to look much beyond the drive of Eamonn O'Hara at centrefield. If Sligo are to have a chance, O'Hara must play well.

Of concern to Ford was the quality of finishing in the first half of the Connacht semi-final. They picked things up afterwards to shoot 1-10 in the third quarter but can hardly hope to survive in such fashion against Galway.

Galway are prone to intermittent performance themselves but as demonstrated against Mayo, they can survive on very tight rations. It's hard to look beyond them.

GALWAY: A Keane; K Fitzgerald, G Fahey, R Fahey; D Meehan, T Mannion, S de Paor; K Walsh, M Donnellan; P Clancy, T Joyce, J Bergin; D Savage, P Joyce (capt.), M Clancy.

SLIGO: J Curran; M Cosgrove, P Naughton, N Carew; P Doohan, M Langan, B Philips; E O'Hara, P Durcan; T Brennan, S Davey, B Walsh; S Sloyan, M Brehony, G McGowan.

Connacht SFC Final

Galway v Sligo

Tomorrow, Castlebar, 2.30