All-Ireland Senior Football Championship semi-final
Donegal 0-15 1-14 Galway
Donegal manager Jim McGuinness said he wasn’t happy with a number of refereeing decisions as Galway edged a tense All-Ireland semi-final.
In a two-point game that was level on 10 occasions, referee Brendan Cawley’s decision to award Galway a 66th minute free for an apparent touch on the ground by Donegal’s Ciaran Thompson was a huge call.
Donegal argued the toss at the time, Ryan McHugh in particular, but Robert Finnerty converted and Liam Silke kicked Galway’s insurance point after that.
“You guys will know that I don’t sort of make comments about referees, I try to stay away from that,” said McGuinness initially when asked about Cawley’s performance and the Thompson decision. “Everybody has got their job to do. I think there were a number (of decisions) today that we wouldn’t have been happy with. In the first minute, Ryan McHugh was breaking through, there were two men pulling at him, he blew him for over-carrying.
“I don’t really want to go there. It is what it is. We’ll have to reflect on a lot of different things over the course of the next couple of days.”
McGuinness continually circled back to Donegal’s poor scoring efficiency in the second-half when attempting to explain how they came up short of Galway.
“I suppose the summary of it will be that we converted five out of 14 (chances) in the second-half, and converted 10 from 14 in the first-half,” he said. “We ran out of steam a wee bit coming down the stretch I think. I think Galway looked a bit more battle-hardened than us, maybe that experience of a couple of years ago was beneficial to them.”
Asked if he was surprised about Donegal running out of steam, and their fitness waning, McGuinness nodded.
“We probably did (get a surprise), and we’ll have to go back and look at it, but it’s a huge day,” said the 2012 All-Ireland winning manager. “That’s what I meant earlier about Galway being there two years ago in the final. It’s a huge day and there’s a lot of emotion attached to the day, the stadium is nearly full and there’s 30,000 or 40,000 Donegal people. All of that ties into the players and they’re bringing all of that to the table so it’s probably natural enough when you narrow into that, that you find the going a wee bit tough.
“They’re on the cusp of something really big and to try to keep that going was a wee bit challenging and you have to give Galway credit as well. They kept going and kept looking for those transitional moments.
“We gave them the kick-out in the second-half and they were still looking to kick the ball and to look for those transitional moments and stuff. So, all of that. I don’t have the answer though. The next couple of days, the answer will probably start to appear. On the way down in the bus, with the coaches, having a chat, we’ll get our heads around things and try to get our heads around it.”
What’s certain is that Galway’s fortuitous 24th minute goal ultimately separated the teams. Paul Conroy’s point attempt dropped short and with Matthew Tierney running across the eye line of goalkeeper Shaun Patton, the ball flew beyond both of them and into the net.
“It was obviously a huge blow,” said McGuinness.
“But we ended up going in with 10 points at half-time so in terms of a psychological blow, they just kept doing what they had done the whole way through the Championship. They stayed on task, working through the processes, trying to put themselves in good spots, trying to work together, trying to play together and not over thinking.
“But really once that ball hits the back of the net, that’s it, you’ve got to move on. You’ve got to think of the next couple of minutes and how we can get back in the game and I actually thought they did that brilliantly well.”
McGuiness agreed that when the dust settles, and Donegal start to take stock of their 2024 season, they will celebrate the progress they have made.
“Very proud of them, very proud of where they’ve come from and where they’ve got to,” said the Glenties man. “They’ve reestablished Donegal in Division 1 and as Ulster champions. We’ll focus on that tonight and then I suppose when things settle we’ll see it in the context of the bigger picture.”
On Galway, McGuinness said Padraic Joyce’s Connacht champions didn’t do anything on the day that surprised him.
“I don’t think Galway changed anything dramatically,” he said. “Tactically they brought the game plan we thought they were going to bring. The people that we thought were going to be in the spots, they were in the spots, the man markers and all of that.
“There were no real surprises there, nor were there in the second-half. It was just a tough battle out there and our lads probably ran out of steam a wee bit and Galway managed to keep going.”