Allianz National Football League Division One: Derry 0-16 Galway 1-13
AT half-time of Saturday night’s engrossing encounter in Celtic Park, everybody was talking about the brilliance of Galway Allstar Johnny Maher.
By full-time, it was Derry super-sub Lachlan Murray who had tongues wagging. No wonder TG4’s producers made a beeline for him to present him with the man-of-the-match award.
If Maher owned the first half, Murray was even better in the second period and was the main reason why Derry were able to claw back a nine-point half-time deficit to grab a draw and avoid a third consecutive defeat in Division One.
The 2020 All-Ireland minor winner has the full skillset. He’s direct, physically strong, good pace, and can kick off both feet.
He played with sublime confidence on Saturday night as Derry were a shade unlucky not to claim the win in the dying seconds.
Everything the Desertmartin man touched from the 44th minute onwards turned to gold.
“Lachlan was outstanding,” beamed Derry boss Paddy Tally afterwards.
“He came in and he just turned the game. He got three points. Every time he got the ball, he looked dangerous.
“Galway started to retreat in front of their own goal because Ethan [Doherty], Lachlan, Brendan [Rogers] and Conor Doherty were really going at them, and that meant then we were getting shots off in good positions.”
In those tumultuous last 10 minutes, with Galway wilting and the Celtic Park crowd smelling blood, it was Murray and Shane McGuigan who breathed new life into Derry’s Allianz League campaign.
With 90 seconds remaining, McGuigan converted a handy free that Murray had won to level it up.
And it could have been even better for the home side had Galway defender John Daly not blocked Ethan Doherty’s last-gasp effort.
“At the end of the game you were thinking we left that game behind us because we had enough chances to win it,” Tally added.
The Galway defence had no answer to Murray’s directness. With Shane McGuigan grabbing a two-pointer from a free after Galway infringed the three-up rule, to reduce the arrears to 1-11 to 0-8, Murray landed his first of three points from play in the 53rd minute with a swerving effort that crept inside Galway’s right-hand post.
He bagged another on the hour mark and fisted over his third of the night three minutes later.
Derry racked up six unanswered points between the 51st and 60th minutes with Conor Glass’s score among them almost lifting the roof off the main stand before Shane Walsh stemmed the tide with his third two-pointer of the night.
Galway were imperious in the opening half and yet looked like they were running on sand in the second half.
Derry’s insatiable desire had something to do with the visitors looking out on their feet though.
Galway, who’d won two out of two before Saturday night’s clash, looked odds-on to make it three-in-a-row in the opening exchanges of this tie.
Maher played the role of the awesome foot soldier, stripping Glass of possession and making two incredible blocks to deny Derry attacker Ben McCarron.
And if that kind of selflessness wasn’t enough, the Salthill-Knocknacarra man got up the field to land a 17th-minute point, the first score of the night where Galway exploited the 12-v-11 rule.
Earlier, Paul Conroy slipped the ball to his right side and Dylan McHugh hammered into Derry’s net. It was all too easy for Galway - and it would get worse for the home side.
Diarmuid Baker has been a paragon of consistency in the Derry backline since stepping into the set-up last year – but he couldn’t get near Shane Walsh who was on fire in a devastating first-half spell that saw the Galway playmaker mine a pair of two-pointers from play.
Paul Cassidy was one Oak Leaf player who offered some resistance by kicking three brilliant first-half points – the pick of which was the Bellaghy man catching Ciaran McFaul’s driven diagonal ball and turning to split Galway’s posts.
“We were doing okay in midfield in the first half,” Tally said, “but we were probably lazy in possession in the sense that we weren’t testing Galway.
“We were playing around them and weren’t really going at them with pace or a bit of cut in us. We gave the ball away a lot in the first half too and we all know Galway are good in the tackle.”
With Derry staring at a third straight defeat and contemplating a relegation dogfight, Galway tried to protect their lead in the second period by keeping ball.
But under the new rules there are more pressure points on the ball and Derry dug incredibly deep within themselves to out-work and out-score the Tribesmen by 0-10 to 0-2 between the 51st minute and full-time.
But Murray’s introduction was the catalyst for the Derry comeback.
Asked what pleased him most about their storming second-half show, Tally said: “I’d say the fightback. That’s serious heart. You’re nine points down [1-10 to 0-4] and you’re facing into your third defeat but they just wouldn’t lie down.
“That team didn’t want to get beaten. That was so important.
“I think if we’d lost that game it would have been devastating for those players, but they didn’t. They finished that game on the up and we’ll look forward to training this week.”
Tally also expressed his delight to see Padraig McGrogan make a late substitute appearance for Derry after a serious knee injury sustained last summer.
Meanwhile, Galway boss Padraic Joyce spoke of his relief in not leaving Derry empty-handed but acknowledged that some rotation was in order as they prepare for their next outing at home to Donegal.
“We’ve still four games to go and two home games coming up,” Joyce said.
“We’ve 30-31 fit players and we’ll change it up next week. It takes a lot out of the lads - travelling up and travelling down. It’s tough going but they love playing for their county.”
After a couple of stumbles and grappling with the new rules, Derry look as though they’ve found their stride as they look ahead to Dublin in Croke Park next weekend.
Derry: N McNicholl 0-1; D Baker, E McEvoy, M Bradley; C Doherty, B Rodgers, D Cassidy; C Glass 0-1, A Tohill; C McFaul, P Cassidy 0-3, E Doherty; B McCarron, S McGuigan 0-8 (1tpf, 0-3f), N Toner
Subs: L Murray 0-3 for B McCarron (44), M Doherty for D Cassidy (51), C McMonagle for N Toner (59), P McGrogan for M Bradley (66)
Galway: C Gleeson; J McGrath, S Fitzgerald, L Silke; D McHugh 1-0, J Daly, S Kelly; P Conroy, J Maher 0-1; S O’Neill 0-1, S Walsh 0-8 (2tp, 1tpf, 0-1f), C Darcy 0-1; C Ó Curraoin 0-1 (f), M Tierney 0-1, F Ó Laoi
Subs: R Finnerty for C Ó Curraoin (44), J Heaney for F Ó Laoi (49), K Molloy for S O’Neill (55), D O’Flaherty for C Darcy (61)
Referee: D Gough (Meath)
