Davy: Penalty miss was costly
Daire Walsh
Wexford manager Davy Fitzgerald identified Conor McDonald’s 40th minute penalty miss and a sticky period before half-time as major factors in his side’s eventual nine-point defeat against Galway.
Four points in succession had allowed the Tribesmen to bring a 0-14 to 0-11 lead into the interval, and after the Slaneysiders had an early second-half point ruled out by Hawkeye, McDonald’s placed-ball opportunity was brilliantly turned away by Galway’s Colm Callanan.
A Lee Chin score from the subsequent ’65’ cut the gap to two, but with their opponents adding a further seven points without reply, Fitzgerald admitted that they lost momentum at that stage.
“That was momentum [the penalty]. We had a point just disallowed by that Hawkeye system. They’re four points. I’m not saying we’d have won the game, but if you’re playing the likes of Galway, there’s two things. One, you can’t give the seven-or-eight-minute patch before half-time that we gave,” Fitzgerald remarked after the game.
“Secondly, when we get opportunities, we have to take them. It’s very hard when a team gets up on you like that. They got a run on us there, and they brought a lot of their forwards out the field. Even though we had the sweeper, they had a lot of room. I was trying to get my forwards out from the other end to meet in the middle. It just didn’t work.”
Indeed, Fitzgerald, who is in his debut season as Wexford boss, pointed out that this was the undoubtedly the biggest game his squad have played in – whereas league champions Galway are a much, more experienced outfit.
“If you weigh it up, most of that [Galway] team have played in four Leinster finals at least. They’ve played in two All-Irelands. That’s by far the biggest we’ve ever played in. That’s 60,000 people.
“We just need to not feel sorry for ourselves now, and pick ourselves up and go again. If you asked me at the start of the year if I can manage what we managed in two years, never mind six, seven months, I’d be delighted. That’s fact.”
While their opponents now move on to the last-four of the All-Ireland series, Wexford will aim to pick themselves up for a quarter-final in the newly redeveloped Pairc Ui Chaoimh on July 23. It remains to be seen which side they will face in three weeks’ time, but although the Clare man accepted it will be tough to pick them up from a morale-sapping loss, he is still expecting a positive reaction from his charges.
“That’s a big ask, to pick them up again now. That’s a nine-point defeat. We’ve to try and get their confidence back up again. I ain’t downbeat. They still kept fighting away there at the end, no matter what.”