Dara Bradley

THE Galway minor footballers’ dream of reaching the 2010 All-Ireland final were cruelly dashed at Croke Park on Sunday when a soft free awarded to Cork in injury-time was converted by Rebel’s hero Brian Hurley who held his nerve to clinch victory by the narrowest of margins in an absorbing eight-goal thriller.

While it is hard to fathom how the Tribesmen let slip a nine-points lead with a quarter of an hour or so remaining, the future of Galway football certainly looks a little bit brighter than it did before throw-in.

Gerry Fahy’s teenagers played with complete abandon, displaying flair, creativity and a dazzling ability to score goals, which bodes well for the years ahead. The Galway youngsters will be feeling raw this week though, and it will no doubt take time to recover from the pain of losing on a score line of 5-8 to 3-15.

It’s not often you score five goals in football and end up on the losing side but much of what happened at GAA HQ was so bizarre, you really couldn’t make it up.

There was drama from beginning to end but the helter skelter periods either side of half-time were breathtaking and produced six goals in just 13 frantic and frenetic minutes.

The excellent Peadar Ó Gríofa netted his second goal of the match with a cracking left peg strike on the stroke of half-time to give Galway a 2-5 to 1-5 advantage going into the dressing room and while that was cancelled out by a Hurley goal immediately after the restart, the Tribesmen continued on a goal-scoring rampage, ripping Cork’s defence to shreds.

Niall Walsh was first to find the Cork net after the break, the Killanin man showing persistence and buckets of determination and skill to fire a bullet passed ‘keeper David Hanrahan after his initial effort was blocked down.

The excitement intensified when clever work from Thomas Flynn and Shane Maughan sent Conor Rabbitte through for Galway’s fourth goal. There was an aura of fantasy about it when talisman Maughan was the provider again minutes later when he found Rabbitte who snuck in for his second goal and Galway’s fifth.

For more, read this week's Connacht Sentinel.