Roscommon 1-9 : : Galway 0-6
This wasn't pretty viewing for any of the faithful from Galway who made the trek to Hyde Park on a wet and blustery Sunday in July as Galway's challenge was bullied out of the way by a hungry Roscommon side. Playing with the aid of a very strong breeze in the first half the Tribesmen only managed to put a solitary score on the board in the opening 30 minutes, through wing back Cathal Mulryan after two minutes.
By by the 20th minute the home side were leading by 0-3 to 0-1 thanks to a brace of points from Thomas Corcoran and one from Donie Smith. Tommie Joyce and his back-room team will have learned a harsh lesson from this game and will hope that the their charges will be able to pick up the pieces before they get back into championship action at the quarter final stages. The big score in the game came just after the 20 minute mark when Enda Lannon lashed the ball to the net, The Roscommon full forward was played in close to goal following a neat build up involving Corcoran and Liam Conlon before he drove it past Connor Gleeson who had no chance. Corcoran added on an fourth point for the victors before the break to leave Galway trailing by 1-4 to 0-1.
In all fairness to Galway they did up their performance in the second half and kept plugging away, but Roscommon were alway able to go up through the gears when needed to keep Galway at arms length.
Shane Maughan led the charge for Galway with three second half points but St Michaels man also missed a couple of frees which could have closed the gap even more for his side. Galway did have a sniff of a goal chance six minutes into the second half when Adrian Nolan clipped the ball across the face of goal into the path of half time sub Johnny Kelleher. But the corner forward wasn't able to get control of the ball quickly enough before he was ushered to safety by the Roscommon defence. While Galway tried to chip into the Roscommon lead, Roscommon kept adding on scores when they needed with Donie Smith kicking three points for his side in the terminal period.
Galway: C Gleeson; L Silke, J Shaughnessy, C Cunningham; E Walsh, G Canavan, C Mulryan; S Geoghegan, S Moran; P Glynn, I Burke, A Nolan; C Rabbitte, S Maughan, S Walsh. Subs: J Kelleher, T Comer, C Timon, G Kelly.
Roscommon: C Lavin; D Murray, R Timothy, S Carty; M Connaughton, J McManus, C Daly; F Kelly, T Corcoran; L Conlon, M Healy, E Smith; D Smith, E Lannon, S Jordan. Subs: K Finn, E Egan, F Sweeney, T McKenna.
