It is peculiar how football in the rickety, old grounds stirs the soul. The Showgrounds is one of those venues. While the Shed has been dismantled, an appreciative audience still gathers every fortnight in the garrison town to see how Sligo Rovers are faring. There is no diluting the importance of the Bit O’Red to the north western psyche. Rovers matter. Simple as.
Though Galway United mightn’t have the exact same attachment with its local community it was heartening to see a healthy crowd make the trip up the N17. One of the charges that has to be levelled against Galway is the lack of bodies on away assignments, and considering that the Board haven’t been represented at every fixture it is difficult to simply censure supporters.
On Saturday a sizeable Galwegian contingent witnessed an encounter that wasn’t short on opportunities or incident, but ultimately the division of the spoils satisfied. Now that expectation is attached to Galway again Jeff Kenna’s initial reaction was one of relief. “We got out of jail tonight. That’s our worst performance in the last six games, but we’ll take it.
Tonight’s performance was poor compared to the last few games, but it’s not a bad thing if you’re not playing well and you’re still picking up a result.”
With Galway ailing in the third quarter a remedy was required and the bench was emptied. Derek Glynn and Iarlaith Daveron were the first two substitutes summoned from the bench, and when Vinny Faherty entered the fray Galway suddenly had the cut of a team. All three can reflect on stable contributions and Kenna concurred. “I thought the players that came on did very well. That’s the type of response you look for as a manager, players that haven’t been playing regularly, they get onto the pitch for half an hour, or however long it was and they have an impact on the game. I felt all three of them did that when they came on.”
Leaking preventable goals has been a recurring theme for Galway and when Raf Cretaro scampered clear to tuck Sligo ahead another was added to the list. Cretaro had been permitted to play all evening and Galway’s distinct lack of meat in the tackle was punished.
“The defending throughout the night wasn’t great. You could argue there were four or five instances where they got through us very easily, but we are bottom of the league and we’re bottom of the league because we concede goals and our defending is not brilliant. That has improved drastically over the last five games and tonight we rolled our luck and thankfully we got a point.”
Every addition to the survival account is worthy. This was acknowledged by goalkeeper Gary Rogers, who again demonstrated expert reflexes when the issue was delicately poised late on to thwart substitute Paul McTiernan. "It is nice to make a couple of saves, but I suppose that is what I am there for and it was good to keep them out at the end.
“It was nice to get a result to keep the unbeaten run going. We are now unbeaten in six games so it was a good point to get considering the Showgrounds is a difficult place to get a result in.
Obviously questions were asked of us when they got the goal and we dug in and got one back.” Now a half dozen matches without defeat, Galway have acquired the yearned for status as a tricky team to beat. Under Ben Bulben the resilience shown suggested that the remaining weeks of a curious campaign ought to be similarly wild.
