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A great evening out on Saturday. A far from flawless but nonetheless mighty performance from the lads. Pearse might even turn into a fortress yet! Thought we did well in our matchups, nullified their star men, kept them just out of shooting range a lot of the time - with some really good defending but then momentarily porous at other times. Gleeson had another great game, to be fair to him. Conroy continues to lead by example. Kelly, Comer (if fit, please God) and Walsh can bring a lot more still. Finnerty is flying and Tierney looking to be almost full throttle again. D'Arcy, Maher, Heaney line breaking power and size is asking questions of blanket defences. Glynn, Fitzy, McGrath looking solid. Daly's points were nicely struck, needs to be quicker on the ball in the arc interplay sometimes though, imo, or better teams will turn him over on split second delays. McHugh great. Silke quality. That said, all defenders could've been tighter on some of Derry's successful shots from range - some shots got off far too easily. Great to see McDaid back, quiet yet but a tremendous player and massive influence to bring yet.
The key thing is we appear to be gathering momentum game on game. The support is building too and the supporters around me were certainly loving what they were witnessing on Sat evening. Hopefully there'll be a great travelling support for our lads on Sunday week in Mullingar. Keep up the great work lads. This train is starting to roll, let's keep picking up speed and driving her on! Gaillimh Abú!!

togoutlads (Galway) - Posts: 913 - 20/05/2024 15:29:19    2545908

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Gleeson had a great game, fair play to him. His jump to save what would have been a point was huge and felt like a key moment. A few more performances like his last two outtings and we'll owe PJ an apology.

My biggest critique, and others have said it, is just how ponderous we are in attack. We get the ball in our own 45 after a turn over and pass it back and forth a few times before even thinking about moving it down the field. It's an odd approach and won't win too many big games. It'll be interesting to watch how we develop in the next few games.
Gaillimh abú.

festinog (Galway) - Posts: 3098 - 20/05/2024 17:46:27    2545958

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A great day, great performance, and result..
Keeping Comer fit is an absolute must if we are to progress, and we cannot take our eye of the ball..
Gotta treat Westmeath with utmost respect.. they nearly caught us last year..

Belclare7 (Galway) - Posts: 10 - 20/05/2024 18:22:33    2545972

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Replying To PressureKick:  "The attack against a mass defense becomes slow and ponderous because Fitzgerald, Glynn and to a lesser extent McGrath are all uncomfortable in the attacking 45 so they hang back outside it. Then you have Conroy and Daly hanging back playing the quarterback role (which they're very good at). But it leads to essentially 9 attackers against 14 defenders and there's just not many options and it leads to endless recycling

This does have benefits, as they're much less likely to concede bar turnover goals. But it probably will become an issue when they're behind in a game, and a switch could have to be made there moving Kelly or Silke back and taking one of Glynn or Fitz off for an attack minded player. For the moment its working though and won't be changed from the start

While the kickout strategy drives me mad also and they lived off scraps possession wise against Mayo, they are dangerous off a long one especially with Tierney, Comer and Darcy (when on) as advanced options. A good example of that was Tierneys catch that led to the comer foul and sending off. A quick kick by Gleeson and a one v one at midfield with the kick to Tierneys advantage. That works great. The problems arise when Gleeson is slow and the opposition have the middle bunched and there's no 1 v 1's on. Its at those times our movement should be much better and we should be trying to get them off short. The only players with good movement from kickouts are McHugh, O'Flaherty and at times Silke. The rest are very static"
In all fairness Conor Gleeson is definitely trying to get ball away quicker and he had a good game on Saturday actually better than against Mayo.He made good save and did the bread and butter things well.Scoring points is grand but it's the simple things that need to be solid and you can feel his confidence is getting better with it.

Alwaysencourage (Galway) - Posts: 230 - 20/05/2024 18:24:52    2545974

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In fairness it was probably Conor Gleason best game in goal this year for Galway and the main reason was he stayed in goal did simply things not going out the field where he struggles,,, a question for posters on here where should Galway play Sean Kelly because in my opinion he definitely not a wing forward or midfielder and I for one think his game is suffering big time and he definitely one of Galway's best attacking defenders,, if they keep playing him out of position it will ruin him and will definitely not help the team either he to good to be messed around I think.,

Kickitout (Galway) - Posts: 858 - 20/05/2024 20:12:41    2545992

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