Unfortunately the Galway minor footballers had a very short championship this season, as they crashed out of the competition last Saturday evening at Tuam Stadium, losing to Roscommon on a scoreline of 1-11 to 1-9 after extra time.
The Galway side can have no complaints either, as they were beaten by a better team and only for some wayward finishing by the Roscommon attack (they shot 10 wides ), and there would have been no need for extra-time.
There was a good crowd of around 4,000 at Tuam and the visitors opened the scoring with a point after two minutes and had doubled the lead before Gary Kelly opened Galway’s account with a point after six minutes.
Galway found it very hard going at midfield all through the contest and they trailed by 1-3 to 0-4 at the interval with Roscommon’s goal coming from ‘Man of the Match' RSonan Daly.
Galway opened the scoring in the second half when Kelly was on target again and it was all- square at 1-4 to 0-7 after seven minutes.
Roscommon led by 1-6 to 0-7 midway through the second half, but when Eoin McCormack punched a Galway goal with seven minutes to go, and that score was followed by a Liam Silke point, it was looking good for Tommie Joyce’s charges.
However they failed to push on and were hit with two late Roscommon points, from midfielder Thomas Corcoran, his frees left it 1-8 each at the final whistle.
Roscommon were the better side in extra-time and deservedly booked their place in the provincial final against Mayo in two weeks’ time at Hyde park.
Galway: Rory Lavelle, Adrian Nolan, James Kennedy, Evan Wynne, Liam Silke, Conor Cunningham (Cpt ), Eoin Kerin, Stephen Lawless, Michael Day, Jason Lyons, Barry McHugh, Alan Meenaghan, Eoin McCormack, Gary Kelly, Sean Hughes.
Subs: J. Heaney for A Meenaghan (inj, 20 ), G Gibbons for Kerin (inj, 37 ), M Upton for Lawless (47 ), A Meeneghan for Hughes (58 ), E Walsh for Cunningham (73 ), C Slattery for McHugh (78 )
