Wexford hurling captain Matthew O'Hanlon gave OTB AM a brilliant tactical breakdown of how Galway beat Clare to reach a successive All Ireland final.
The Tribesmen overcame Clare to face Limerick on August 19th at Croke Park. Matthew identified five areas that decided Sunday's match:
Galway isolated Colm Galvin
"If you look at the first game, Clare seized the momentum by putting Galvin back as a sweeper and Galway were guilty of playing too much ball directly on him. Galvin got onto loads of breaks, set up attacks and that really dragged them back into the game. In the replay, Galway played the ball excellently diagonally into space, away from Galvin and he didn't get anywhere near as many breaks."
Deep ball to Johnny Glynn was the tonic
"Galway were nine points up by 20 minutes in. In those first 20 minutes, Clare set up with a sweeper and got Colm Galvin back, but he didn't enjoy anywhere near as much space or wasn't afforded an easy, breaking ball as he got in the first game. That meant that Galway played long, deep ball into Johnny Glynn, which proved fruitful. He was either winning it clean, or Conor Cooney or Niall Burke were in around him winning breaks, or Galway managed to find a half-forward who carried the ball and engaged the sweeper and offloaded to a runner. That is ultimately how they got ahead."
Direct to John Conlon didn't work for Clare
"It was probably due to the pressure that Galway's forwards were putting on Colm Galvin that he couldn't pick out any short passes to midfield or up front. Once they went long to Conlon, he didn't seem to be able to win any ball clean and Padraig Mannion seemed to be able to pick up every single break. In effect, it nearly backfired on Clare starting because Padraig Mannion had more of an effect as a sweeper than Galvin did.
"You could see from the 16th or 17th minute on, Colm Galvin tried to play it more positively. There were a couple of attacks where he engaged as an overlapping runner, he managed to get the ball in the Galway 65 and then play a better diagonal ball into space to Conlon, where they were able to get a secondhand break off him."
Clare were better when they went all-out
"[Clare] pushed up 15 on 15, and you saw Tuohy went way longer with puck-outs. In the first half, 75-80% of his puck-outs went short. In the second half, 75-80% of his puck-outs went long because they really committed to the breaks and targeted Peter Duggan, and they had men in around him to get those breaks. The first score after half-time was the real vindication of that. They had a string of four or five fifteen to twenty yard passes in the middle third, waiting for the opportunity to break through, rather than pumping long, direct ball into Conlon."
Confidence to see out Clare's late surge from All Ireland win
"Winning an All Ireland gives you a real self-belief within the team, and they are a confident bunch. They know that they do not panic when it gets into a scenario in the last five minutes of a game with one or two points in it, that they don't panic. The same was evident yesterday when they had all the momentum, hit the post, had every chance going and they were clawing them back. They still managed to get the crucial scores at the very end.
"It is more about game management and knowing how to win big games, and that is probably the confidence that comes from winning an All Ireland."
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