The Galway Youth Inter-League team enjoyed a productive 2-0 victory over Mayo at Mervue United on Saturday afternoon.
Goals from Gradi Lomboto and Daniel O'Connor ensured Ollie Neary and Damien Brennan's charges earned the full complement of spoils.
With Inishowen also in the group, the Galway representative side will be hoping to advance to the knockout stages of the competition.
"It was important to get a good start," Neary says. "Obviously being at home you wanted to get the points.
"This year has been a bit strange to a certain degree because we probably started the season a bit later the way Covid finished out last season. So we have only really had one league game, a couple of Irish Cup and Connacht Cup games.
"We were relying on the local managers of the local teams and their recommendations. We had the lads in on Tuesday and Thursday. We did a couple of sessions with them.
"We prepared as best as we possibly could. On Saturday we had lads from seven different teams in the local league so it was good that way, most of the teams in our division got representation on the pitch."
Neary is optimistic that Galway can enjoy a lengthy run in the tournament. "Over the last few years - last year it didn't happen because of the Covid situation - but the two previous years we got to the semi-final down in Cork, we lost 3-2," he says. "We got to the quarter-final the other year. We are in it to try to win it.
"The game on Saturday you are putting so many different players from different clubs into a team for the first time. You just don't know if it is going to marry well, but we got the right ingredients out on the pitch.
"The second game is Mayo and Inishowen, we will nearly know after that game if we are through to the next stage. We will have to go to Inishowen to play them.
"That game in Inishowen is in December so hopefully over the next few weeks we will be able to go to games to see is there any other lads that might catch the eye."
