{"id":533529,"date":"2026-06-13T16:06:18","date_gmt":"2026-06-13T16:06:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/533529\/"},"modified":"2026-06-13T16:06:18","modified_gmt":"2026-06-13T16:06:18","slug":"fully-fit-galway-look-well-placed-to-topple-trio-of-favourites-in-all-ireland-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/533529\/","title":{"rendered":"Fully fit Galway look well placed to topple trio of favourites in All-Ireland \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

The general consensus seems to be that three teams \u2013 Donegal<\/a>, Kerry<\/a> and Armagh<\/a> \u2013 have some hand or other on the favourite\u2019s tag when it comes to lifting Sam Maguire this year. I don\u2019t disagree with that view but it is far from a clearcut case that one of those will ultimately win the All-Ireland<\/a> and, of the rest, Galway seem to me to be the team most likely to be the disrupters to that gang of three.<\/p>\n

As jeopardy truly comes into play this weekend \u2013 with four of the remaining 16 football teams set to depart the championship as we get to the nitty-gritty part of the campaign \u2013 I\u2019ve grown more inclined to factor Galway<\/a> into the equation as genuine title contenders, even if the encounter with Leinster champions Westmeath<\/a> presents a difficult hurdle to overcome.<\/p>\n

They have come a long way after a difficult National League when a lot of men were missing and they had so many injuries to cope with. Even still, they managed to finish up comfortably mid-table in Division One with eight points. Now Galway, with only the absence of Se\u00e1n Fitzgerald, who has his hands full with other matters on Love Island, are pretty much back to a full deck and are nipping along nicely.<\/p>\n

I realise Galway weren\u2019t overly impressive against Kildare but they got the job done and ended up winning by 13 points that day. And if we\u2019re looking at Galway in the last two years, the All-Ireland final against Armagh in 2024 and last year, they were badly hamstrung with injuries which finally seem to have cleared up.<\/p>\n

Cillian McDaid was in and out of the team with injuries. Shane Walsh, Damien Comer the same. Se\u00e1n Kelly looked like a man who was playing through injuries. It looks like all those players are fit again and that gives P\u00e1draic Joyce<\/a> options he didn\u2019t have and a full hand to play now, especially with Rob Finnerty stepping up to probably become their marquee forward.<\/p>\n

They also have strength around the middle in C\u00e9in D\u2019Arcy, John Maher, Paul Conroy and Matthew Tierney, so they have options for long kick-outs. I don\u2019t know if you can call them dark horses as this is a team that\u2019s been to two All-Ireland finals in the past four years, but they weren\u2019t on form earlier in the year and now they\u2019re definitely shaping up for a long summer.<\/p>\n

Westmeath go to Pearse Stadium without any fear, with huge momentum and belief in what they\u2019re doing, but I feel that playing Galway will be a step up from anything that they\u2019ve played to date.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re into June and into proper championship football, although I don\u2019t see many shock results like the ones that were thrown up in the provincial matches. The draw sort of lends itself to fairly predictable results in a lot of them. I feel Armagh, Galway, Kerry and Donegal are well set for wins and the other matches are 50-50.<\/p>\n

The two games which are hardest to call are Roscommon against Monaghan and Derry versus Meath. Two of the better teams in the championship will be gone after this weekend, though I\u2019m not sure any of those four teams are ready to launch a serious attack on the All-Ireland just yet.<\/p>\n

\"Dublin’sDublin\u2019s manager Ger Brennan and Galway manager P\u00e1draic Joyce after league tie on March 22nd. Photograph: James Crombie\/\u00a9INPHO <\/p>\n

There will, of course, be a lot of interest in how Dublin perform away to Cavan, with Ger Brennan<\/a> back on the sideline after all that has gone on and the disruption his absence caused. <\/p>\n

I see Dublin quoted as much as 35-1 to win the All-Ireland, which says a lot about where they\u2019re at. Would it be a massive shock if Dublin were beaten? I don\u2019t think any of us would be overly shocked, to be honest, and I do think it\u2019s only a matter of time before Dublin are put out of the championship.<\/p>\n

Do Dublin see themselves as victims, I wonder? I\u2019m sure that\u2019s an angle they could use as a motivation. You always try to find an angle as a player or a manager \u2013 something to get an edge.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been in dressingrooms where managers play the underdogs card or produce a newspaper cutting or use what an opposing manager or player has said. If I\u2019m honest, as a player you\u2019d pay very little heed to it. But sometimes managers would use such tactics to harness players\u2019 energy and to focus the minds.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Westmeath meeting ambition with effort in drive for place at the top tableOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not a card you can play every weekend or every week, but there are times when if it\u2019s used correctly, it can be very effective. I suspect Dublin and Ger Brennan will be certainly trying to use whatever angle they can to get the best out of Dublin, although given their losses to Louth and Westmeath in their last two matches, they would seem to be living on borrowed time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The general consensus seems to be that three teams \u2013 Donegal, Kerry and Armagh \u2013 have some hand…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":533530,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[76],"tags":[55538,10416,47006,11795,17159,18,131567,5286,19,17,35463,30859,64890,111429,132,7179],"class_list":["post-533529","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-galway-gaa","tag-kerry-gaa","tag-armagh-gaa","tag-derry-gaa","tag-donegal-gaa","tag-eire","tag-football-championship","tag-gaa","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-kildare-gaa","tag-meath-gaa","tag-monaghan-gaa","tag-roscommon-gaa","tag-sports","tag-westmeath-gaa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116743660987501210","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/533529","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=533529"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/533529\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/533530"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=533529"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=533529"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=533529"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}