Late Rossie raid elevates mediocre to memorable

PAUL HEALY

View from the Stand

It was rugby titan Moss Keane who famously said of a particularly uninspiring game: “The first half was even; the second half was even worse”.

Under no circumstances would that quip be an entirely fair characterisation of Sunday’s unusually lowscoring contest between Galway and Roscommon. Well, you could say that the first 20 minutes or thereabouts was even, and that the rest of the opening half – from a Roscommon perspective – was even worse. The third quarter was largely dismal too…but the finale was pretty special. A match that had been tedious to watch seemed to be under Galway control; then, boosted by a ‘bench’ that continues to impress, a terrific Roscommon charge elevated this encounter from the mediocre to the memorable. At least for the visitors.

This was a stunning Roscommon win, Davy Burke’s team scoring the last five points of the game to grab the afternoon’s prize from a shell-shocked home side. Overturning a 0-8 to 0-4 deficit in a 20-minute spell represented quite the purple patch, given the paucity of scores up to then.

was stretchered off with a nasty looking knee injury.

Daire Cregg (1st minute) and Ciarán Lennon (11th) pointed early for Roscommon, but it would be 26 minutes before the visitors scored again. Led by Cillian McDaid, Galway forged head with five unanswered points before a Diarmuid Murtagh score brought a forgettable half