Galway have had a chronic case of flatness for nearly a year
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There were 42 minutes on the clock at Wexford Park. A brief stoppage to allow attention to the stricken Richie Lawlor. Henry Shefflin could not have been more animated along the sideline. Vexingly gesticulating. Gesturing at his players to “MOVE” for a Galway restart.
Shefflin’s frustration was not exclusive to the lack of options presenting themselves to goalkeeper Darach Fahy. His frustration was not exclusive to having lost the previous puck-out. His frustration was not exclusive to Jack Grealish carelessly turning over possession in the play previous to that and Wexford raising a white flag from it to move four in front.
His frustration was born from a campaign still stuck on the runway in the month of May. Having to issue such a basic instruction as “move” in year three of his tenure out west was a microcosm of such.
“It is hard to blame him,” Seamus Hickey said on GAAGO co-commentary of Shefflin's animated state. “After the good work that they did in Salthill matching up against Kilkenny, particularly on puck-outs, I feel they are very flat.”
Flat is the operative word. Flat has been the theme for 2024. A so-far incurable case of flatness has been the diagnosis since the second half of last July’s All-Ireland semi-final.
Rewind to that All-Ireland semi-final. After 24 minutes, Galway led the champions 1-12 to 1-6.
Shefflin and his sideline team had come with a plan. They stretched Limerick. They avoided middle-third confrontation. They were efficient off set plays. They sent Brian Concannon back the field and into a playmaking role. They unsettled and caught Limerick unawares by shoving Cathal Mannion in the opposite direction.
When Limerick eventually figured it all out and shut it all down, Galway were without a Plan B. Being unable to tame or thwart a flowing Limerick is forgivable. Having no Plan B against a 14-man Wexford is not.
There were 59 minutes on the clock at Wexford Park three weeks ago when Pádraic Mannion lumped a long ball in on top of Jonathan Glynn. Behind by seven, but with a man extra and time still on their side, Hickey labelled the route-one approach “distressing”, “desperate”, and an aversion to “Galway’s style”.
Instead of playing through the lines, Galway defenders naively followed retreating Wexford forwards into the opposition half and left a prairie of space behind them which Wexford exploited upon each long ball turnover.
It was an unimaginative and ineffectual approach Shefflin, O'Shea, and Co. had to take responsibility for. Blame for the current malaise is not exclusive to those inside the whitewash.
Between them, management and players need to quickly locate a remedy ahead of Dublin’s visit this Sunday. Galway need a result to avoid a first round-robin elimination since 2019.
It was a Dublin defeat in the final round that did for Galway five years ago. It wound up being Micheál Donoghue's last game at the helm. He leads the opposition this Sunday.
Would another round-robin Dublin defeat signal the end for another Galway manager?
Former Galway boss John McIntyre followed the team to Corrigan Park last weekend, a game the visitors trailed 1-10 to 1-11 at half-time and were still trailing three minutes into the second period when Antrim centre-back Ryan McGarry was dismissed.
“They are still not moving with the expected fluency,” McIntyre wrote of Galway in Thursday’s Connacht Tribune. “Several players look to be lacking belief, while a couple of others didn’t dismiss concerns over their mobility.”
So, that’s flatness, and a lack of belief, mobility, and movement thrown into the pot as to just why Galway have not sparked in 2024.
During the post-match conversation following the defeat to Wexford in Round 3, Richie Hogan tabled another root cause.
“There are five or six of those characters who went and won an All-Ireland in 2017, outstanding leaders. What’s happened is the younger guys haven’t pushed it on. The older guys, they just can’t be dependent on them any more.”
Bar Gavin Lee - an All-Ireland minor winner in 2019 and the delayed 2020 season - no other new face has established themselves on Shefflin’s team this year.
The spine of Sunday’s team includes four players - Daithí Burke, Pádraic Mannion, David Burke, and Conor Cooney - serving at the coalface since 2014, 2015, 2010, and 2012 respectively. That’s not today or yesterday.
For all the county’s underage success of the past decade, recalling another 2012 debutant - Jonathan Glynn - spoke volumes about the county’s youthful options and management’s faith in them.
“I still believe there is serious potential in our team,” said 34-year-old David Burke after the win in Belfast.
Added his manager: “I know our performances probably haven’t been flowing as well as we’d like, but I think there are signs it is coming.”
Flow, potential, and everything else needs to materialise come 2pm Sunday.