Well hes a ball winner and when jonny wanders in we have none out there
Champions Galway hold off Clare to reach final
Galway 1-17 Clare 2-13
Enda McEvoy
August 6 2018, 12:01am, The Times
Galway’s Glynn shows his finesse to score an audacious goal in the 20th minuteTOMMY DICKSON/INPHO
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And so Galway continue to stagger on, boats beating against all sorts of currents. Throwing punches, taking punches, mixing good patches with bad patches, still upright and still undefeated. In their eighth outing of a tumultuous summer they just about fell over the finishing line a short head in front of their opponents and they just about deserved to. Nobody can say they have taken the easy road to face Limerick in the All-Ireland final on Sunday week.
What might have been for Clare, though. What might have been but for the 19 wides they drove. What might have been but, above all, for a pendulum passage of play three minutes from the end of normal time. Having trailed from the second minute, Clare had managed to pull the deficit back to the minimum, 1-15 to 2-11, when Shane O’Donnell charged through the middle. The Ennis man had done more than anyone to haul his team back into the argument in the second half and the obvious course of action was to take his point and level the game.
The best forwards know when to go for the jugular, however, and O’Donnell cannot be criticised for deciding to do so. Instead of popping the sliotar over the bar he slung a handpass to the unmarked Aron Shanagher on his right.
In response, James Skehill did exactly what a goalkeeper should do, charging off his line but standing up and making himself big. Shanagher put his shot against Skehill’s body, saw the rebound come straight back to him, and, with O’Donnell looking on, arms raised in premature triumph, somehow managed to spoon it against the upright. Skehill promptly pulled on the loose ball and Galway cleared their lines; moments later they had a sideline cut down the other end, upon which Joe Canning did what Joe usually does from the whitewash. It was a four-point turnaround and it won the game for the MacCarthy Cup holders.
For the second week in a row Galway had to dig deep. For the second week in a row they survived largely because they put money in the bank early on. In the drawn game they led by nine points after 16 minutes. Here they again dominated from the throw-in, leading by 0-4 to nothing after seven minutes and by 0-8 to 0-2 after 16. But their wayward shooting from Croke Park was repeated, as evidenced by five wides in the opening quarter of an hour.
It did not appear to matter at the time. Galway were driving at the Clare defence, making incisions all over the canvas. Canning, whose injury scare proved to be precisely that, was on the mark twice from play, the second time with a monster point from the right-hand touchline.
The absence of Gearóid McInerney, meanwhile, proved no cause for alarm. Pádraic Mannion took over at centre-back, with Joseph Cooney switching from the forward line to left-half back. But Mannion’s job here was not that of a conventional No 6. With Galway mindful of the importance of closing down John Conlon he played deep, thus always being on hand to help mop up when Clare went long and the ball broke between Conlon and Daithí Burke.
The favourites landed the first heavy blow in the 20th minute. Skehill went short with a puckout to the unmarked Cooney, who took out his siege gun and dumped the sliotar on top of Jonathan Glynn on the edge of the Clare square. Anyone who may have doubted Glynn’s finesse will have been taken aback at what happened next. Glynn neatly touched the ball down to himself, evaded the attentions of David McInerney, created room for a swing and with a one-handed swipe off his left lashed it to the net. It was original, audacious and beautifully done. Galway 1-9, Clare 0-3.
That a nine-point lead is a dangerous one has been one of the truisms of this glorious hurling summer. Sure enough, Clare poked and prodded away and by the midway stage had the deficit down to six, 1-9 to 0-6. As if to underline Galway’s predilection for dozy spells, Glynn’s goal was their final score of the half. This was not over.
Clare upped their work rate on the resumption and within seven minutes O’Donnell slalomed his way through for a goal. A thing of balance and beauty he managed to slip to the net despite being manhandled by three Galway defenders, Fergal Horgan playing a good advantage on what was otherwise an unimpressive afternoon for the referee. O’Donnell, suddenly unmarkable, had a hand in the winning of two frees that Peter Duggan converted. A dull game had become a gripping contest and the 44,246 spectators had found their voice.
Come the three-quarter mark it was a one-point affair after O’Donnell recycled the sliotar on the endline and Duggan put an exocet past Skehill. But Galway’s response was swift, Canning winning and nailing a free, and in the end it was this ability on the part of the champions to keep responding to everything thrown at them that got them through. It is what champions do.
How they lined up
Scorers: Galway J Canning 0-8 (4f, 1sc), C Whelan 0-3, J Glynn 1-0, David Burke, N Burke 0-2 each, C Cooney, C Mannion 0-1 each. Clare P Duggan 1-6 (6f ), S O’Donnell 1-1, I Galvin 0-2, T Kelly, P Collins, J Conlon, A Shanagher 0-1 each.
Galway J Skehill; A Tuohey, Daithí Burke, J Hanbury (sub: S Loftus 53 min); A Harte, P Mannion, J Cooney; J Cooney, David Burke; N Burke, J Cooney, J Glynn (sub: D Glennon 72); C Whelan, C Cooney (sub: J Flynn 58), C Mannion.
Clare D Tuohy; P O’Connor (sub: R Hayes 57), D McInerney, J Browne; S Morey, C Cleary, J Shanahan (sub: M O’Malley 60); C Galvin, D Fitzgerald (sub: C Malone 43); P Duggan, T Kelly, D Reidy (sub: I Galvin 44); P Collins (sub: A Shanagher 63), J Conlon, S O’Donnell.
Referee Fergal Horgan (Tipperary).
Think Joe has been looking to Mickey Harte for guidance on post match porkies - by Wednesday he’ll want to put it behind him and not mention it any more.
Who are these cunts shouting for Limerick, mate?
You’re going to be up for Limerick surely Har?
Game changer
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While I have you, how do i break a long post and reply to various paragraphs in between
Go and shite you cunt.
Huh…
Say there’s a long post, but I want to chop it up and reply to various parts, kinda within the post. Say someone makes four points in a row and you want to deal with each individually?
Just Select parts you want & Quote function should appear or just copy & paste.
Who’s in trouble?
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No one now but many have escaped a pasting in the past
Yeah but how do you reply to further parts of that post, if you get me
Just select parts you want, simples.
I won’t be making a video, mate.
Play about in a post with these (without the spaces)
[ quote ]
[/ quote ]
Tease…
I know you’ll be shouting for Limerick on the day.
@maroonandwhite must be composing an absolute Iliad of a post. Such technical attention to detail I’ve never seen.
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