The Final Whistle – No heart, no self-belief, no passion, no excuses

HEREâ€â„¢S what others thought of Galway vs Mayo, starting with the reaction of 1998 All-Ireland winning Galway captain Ray Silke, writing in The Examiner on Monday morning. â€Å“Sometimes there can be no excuses. You put your hands up, hang your head with mortification and admit: We were abysmal. We did not play with any organisation, passion, heart or conviction. We did not play like a team and we did not stand up and be counted like men. We let ourselves and our county down. â€Å“That was the story for Galway. They were abysmal. No organisation. No fire. No self-belief. Whatever modicum of belief they had was gone by the time they handed Mayo three of the softest goals seen in Championship football for a long time. All of those goals came from unforced Galway errors.[private] â€Å“There was a gap in quality between the teams. Mayo looked like Bayern Munich and Galway looked like Wolves. Mayo are a Division 1 team. An established team, and it showed. Their power, conditioning and raw energy left Galway trailing badly in their wake. â€Å“It would be easy to slam the Galway players and call them a disgrace to the county jersey but that would miss the point. This is where Galway senior football is at present â€â€ in the shadowlands and light years behind the top 10 or 12 teams in the country.â€Â Eoin â€Å“Bomberâ€Â Liston, writing in the Irish Independent on Monday, said he thinks now that â€Å“Galway look like an easy touch in the qualifiers,â€Â adding he had thought before the game that it was no foregone conclusion. â€Å“I was well off the mark and credit should go to Mayo. James Horan has got his squad where he wants them. His team were organised, disciplined and there wasnâ€â„¢t the slightest inkling of complacency. They had the look of a mature group, there to do a job. â€Å“These two teams are years apart in their development cycles. Galway are only starting out in that regard after a number of barren years. You could see that the physicality required wasnâ€â„¢t there and they were naive in their approach. No evidence of a solid defensive strategy. To play a short game with light bodies against a team as physically strong as Mayo was criminal. Galwayâ€â„¢s basic skills under pressure were poor. Far too much ball was turned over. No composure with the ball in hand, or defensively. Any time Mayo ran at them the only answer they seemed to have was to foul. The former Kerry star was impressed by Galwayâ€â„¢s youngest player, Shane Walsh, when he was introduced as a sub. He also exonerated Paul Conroy and Michael Meehan from blame and he felt that the loss of the injured Finian Hanley cost Galway vital experience and leadership. He urged Galway, as a county, to nurture the talent of the successful U-21s and added: â€Å“They should be drilled in the modern way of thinking in terms of having a defensive strategy that will allow their natural flair the platform it needs to perform.â€Â Another former All-Ireland winner with Galway, Seán Ó Domhnaill, said on Galway Bay fm that Galway are being left behind â€Å“while the game has moved on.â€Â The big Carraroe man went on to say: â€Å“We have been putting our heads in the sand, saying we play attractive football, but it wonâ€â„¢t win matches in the Championship. We were second to the ball, we were weak, we didnâ€â„¢t have a Plan B, we gave up possession. If you were watching an U-12 or U-14 match youâ€â„¢d be giving out to them! â€Å“As supporters of Galway football, itâ€â„¢s time for us to wake up because this Galway team is not good enough.â€Â Martin McHugh of Donegal said on RTE Radio on Monday evening that he tried to convince himself Galway â€Å“had it in there somewhere, because they were Galwayâ€Â but watching them on Sunday he discovered â€Å“there was nothing there.â€Â [/private]